Those Left Behind
by RogueTamer2k7
Summary: When Takato and the others go missing, the classmates they left behind must pick up where they left off and find them, gaining partners and dealing with whatever conflicts that arise among them. Post Runaway Locomon. Please review.
1. In the Footsteps of Heroes

Chapter 1: In the Footsteps of Heroes

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Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon or any of the characters in this fic (the one exception in this chapter is Kurita, who exists to fulfill a specific purpose).

Oh, and thanks to CrazyEight for betaing this piece.

###

He was dreading what he was about to do. For Yamaki, his subordinates were important. They were people. To have _any _of them go missing on a mission was a failure.

But here he was. He pressed a button on the voice recorder.

"Log, April 30, 2002. The Tamers of Shinjuku: Takato Matsuki, Rika Nonaka, Henry Wong, Kazu Shioda and Kenta Kitagawa, along with Ryo Akiyama who was visiting at the time, are to be considered missing in action following the investigation of a bioemergence in Shinjuku Park. Their last known coordinates in the digital world are below the Sovereign's level, near where the D-Reaper used to be. Unfortunately, the only remaining Tamers in Shinjuku are Suzie Wong and the twins, Ai and Mako, who are far too young for a follow-up mission into the digital world. Though there are now a few other Tamers in Japan, none of them have the experience or expertise to embark on such a mission. There is currently nothing more we can do."

Yamaki wiped the sweat from his brow as he closed out his log program. There was no way he would sleep that night.

###

Jeri arrived at school the next day, already knowing that the others were missing. It was hard. Since she had no partner, she couldn't really do anything about it and going to the digital world would be a death sentence for her.

Of course, the digital world had been severely depopulated after the D-Reaper war, so there was a chance she wouldn't run into anything dangerous. Still, it was a chance she was unwilling to take. She wished she could repay her friends by helping find them, but without Leomon, she felt so… useless.

_Snap out of it, Jeri! You're not useless!_

She hoped that none of her other classmates noticed her squinting her eyes and shaking her head. At least she no longer had the hand puppet that she carried. The road to healing since the D-Reaper was a long one, to be sure.

"Hey, Jeri, what's the matter?" the brunette heard. She looked to the side and saw her friend Miki, a girl with short, dark hair. The dark-haired girl was smiling, but even Jeri could tell that it was an uneasy one. Nobody knew the exact reason for the absence of the others, but the brunette could tell that everyone at least suspected the truth.

"Oh, it's nothing. I'm just worried, that's all," Jeri replied, trying her best to conjure up a smile.

Miki realized the whole thing was probably a rather sensitive subject, so she backed off and looked over at the others in the classroom. The dark-haired girl secretly wished she were a Tamer so she could help bring the others back, but she knew that wasn't going to change any time soon.

"So, where's Ayaka?" Jeri inquired of her friend.

"I have, like, no idea," the dark-haired girl responded. Just then, a familiar blonde-haired girl ran in through the classroom door. "Oh, Ayaka, you made it!"

The pig-tailed blonde groaned as she sat down. "Are you kidding me? I overslept! It's a miracle I made it on time. Stupid alarm clock!"

"You weren't up watching TV again, were you?" Miki asked.

"Uh, no!" Ayaka denied, looking around. Really she wasn't. She was simply playing video games. "So, hear anything about… you know?" the pig-tailed blonde asked, trying to be sensitive about it.

Jeri shook her head, disappointed, before sighing. The brunette was about to say something else, but she was cut off by the teacher for the new school-year, Mr. Takahashi, cutting them off.

"Okay, class! It's time to get started," the balding man told the class as they all sat down in their seats, waiting for him to take attendance.

###

He walked away from school, thinking of what he was eventually going to do. He needed to do this. He needed to make the first steps towards finding the original Tamers of Shinjuku. Everyone knows they've gone missing. It was just that Hypnos was covering it up.

Unfortunately, he didn't know where to start.

He knew that there weren't going to be any trips to the digital world. For one thing, the other Tamers in Japan were inexperienced and they didn't have any sort of connections to the Tamers of Shinjuku like he did.

He was a classmate of Takato Matsuki named Tadashi Nakabayashi. He was a bit of a chubby kid who had dark blond hair, brown eyes and was wearing a yellow shirt and brown pants.

"Yo! Tadashi, what's up?" the blond looked behind to see his friend Yuji coming up behind him. Yuji had long brown hair and was wearing a blue shirt. "Why do you look so serious, man?"

"I'm just thinking. What are you up to?" the blond asked, continuing his walk.

"Not much. I'm just trying to save up a little money. You want to help me on a job real quick?" the guy asked, grinning widely.

Tadashi wasn't interested. "Takato and the other Tamers are missing and all you can think about is money?" he asked, looking at his friend with a slightly irritated expression.

"Not like we can do much about that, can we?" the brown-haired teen said. "None of us are Tamers and there's not much of a chance we'll become Tamers, so what's the point in worrying about it?"

Tadashi stopped dead in his tracks and glared at his friend. "Seriously?"

"Dude, those government guys that monitor the Digital World are probably tracking them down right now. They're probably just on a secret mission that they couldn't tell us about, like the time they had to rescue Calumon. Just think, you thought he was a ghost when he messed up the soccer field."

"I thought that was you," Tadashi objected.

"Nah, that was totally either you or Taizou," the brown-haired teen replied, grinning while he said that. "Me? I'm not so stupid as to think that the supernatural can get involved, though, if you think about it, Digimon are kind of supernatural."

Tadashi rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I'm just going home."

"What? You're not going to help me out? Taizou and Jeremy both agreed to it!" Yuji objected, now visibly annoyed.

"No, I'm not. Think about all this, okay? The Tamers would have let everyone know if they were heading to the digital world on their own. Something's up, and I want to find out what, even if I have to go all the way to the Digital World to do so," the boy declared to his friend.

"Right, go ahead," Yuji urged, not buying it. "Just remember who freaks out whenever they have to deal with crowds, okay?"

Tadashi glared at his friend. "I don't do that!" he objected.

"No, you so do!" Yuji smiled. "Come on, you know you want to help me. Remember, you'll get a part of the share."

The blond shook his head. "No, and that's final."

"Okay, just don't come running for a loan when I end up rich," the brown-haired teen said, walking away.

Tadashi just continued his pace. He had a ways to go before he reached the apartment building that he lived in. This gave him time to think. Yet life had other plans for him.

###

An orange, lion-like rookie-level digimon moved through the jungles of the digital world, trying to evade the forces that were after him, a force consisting of numerous Commandramon led by a Sealsdramon.

The digimon, a member of the Coronamon species, couldn't defend himself from so many enemies at once. He needed a way out.

Listening behind him, he knew the Commandramon were closing in. They worked for a newly formed nation-state in the Western Digital World, the first of its kind and he just had to make the mistake of complaining about it. A part of him wished that either the Sovereigns or the Tamers that came from the human world would do something about it.

_Run! _He commanded himself, despite the strength in his legs starting to give out.

"So, this is the end, huh?" he asked himself half-heartedly, almost giving up as he tripped over some vines. That was, until he berated himself for what he said. "Stop it! This isn't the end, Coronamon! You can get through this!"

"Says you, even though you're surrounded," the digimon heard from behind. He spotted the reptilian cyborg digimon, Sealsdramon, looking right at him, licking his chops. The truth was that despite the numerous Commandramon around him, he would get his data. Looking around, he saw the Commandramon de-camouflaging themselves all around him.

He wasn't going to give up hope that easily. Looking up, he saw a flock of digignomes fly above him, a couple of them noticing his predicament.

He wished he could get out of that situation. It turned out one of the digignomes sensed that.

"Anything you'd like to say, Rookie?" Sealsdramon asked, brandishing his knife.

Standing in front of the firing squad, the digimon remembered his rebirth after the d-reaper invasion and hoped that the Commandramon would see that what was going on was wrong.

"Incoming!" one of the Commandramon yelled out as he was absorbed by a green data-stream. Coronamon let it absorb him as the squad dispersed.

He flew through the region between worlds, barely noticing the Commandramon who had been absorbed a few seconds before he was. Still, he hoped that he didn't have to fight against the cyborg Agumon as soon as he entered into the real world.

###

A dome of fog popped up out of nowhere as Coronamon emerged in the center of one of two bioemergences within a few hundred feet of each other. The lion got up before nearly getting hit by a car. Dodging the mechanical vehicle, he broke past the edge of the field, running straight into a wall. As the field dispersed, he looked around and spotted the numerous buildings that surrounded him.

"No way. This is just like those ruins right by the village…" his words were cut off by a scream.

"That's… that's a digimon isn't it?!" a woman screeched.

Past the woman was a trio of adolescents with baseball bats. _Ah, cripes!_ The lion thought in his head as he ran in the opposite direction. He eventually spotted an alleyway and ran down it before noticing that it was a dead-end. Thinking quick, he saw a dumpster and, not knowing what it was for, jumped right in two seconds before the kids with bats turned the corner.

"What?" the leader of the squad complained. "Great, the thing must have found a way to climb the fence!"

"Uh, I don't see him anywhere," one of the others muttered.

"Of course not! The thing's superhuman and probably has super-speed too!"

Tadashi walked past the alley as he heard the guys complain. He felt nervous, but he felt that he also had to ask them what they were after. "What are you guys looking for?" he asked, confused and hoping that it was what he thought it was.

"Nothing that concerns you, chump!" the leader exclaimed.

"Yeah, it's just one of those freaks that decided to come over from the other side," the third guy said suavely as the three moved past the blond who was clenching his backpack's straps in fear.

He was beginning to have second thoughts about the whole Tamer thing as the three hoodlums left the alleyway.

Thinking about it, he wondered if the digimon that had escaped may have hid around him, though he had no reason to think that was the case. It was just the hope that was within him that made him ask that question. Looking around, he spotted the dumpster.

The blond decided to tap the sides. "Anybody in there?" he asked before realizing that he probably looked crazy for asking that question.

"Nope, nobody home!" he heard from inside the can. _Crap, this guy's probably too dumb to live._

"Alright. I wouldn't want a digimon that was covered in trash anyway for a partner," Tadashi said into the air.

Then the lid lifted up and the lion… thing glanced at him. "Trash? Wait, you mean that… Oh, yuck! No wonder this thing smells gross!"

The blond chuckled. "The name's Tadashi," he said, holding out his hand to shake.

"Tadashi? No mon at the end? What kind of place is this?" the digimon asked as he squeezed out of the dumpster.

"The human world," the blond responded, deciding not to say the 'real world' since that would imply that the digital world wasn't as real as it really was. The lion shook the kid's hand before saying his name.

"Coronamon, at your service! So, you're a human, huh? I was expecting something different, like with more hair or something."

Tadashi smirked before shaking his head. "Nope!"

"Then again, I guess most digimon think of humans as looking somewhat like themselves anyway. So, you want to be partners?" the digimon inquired nonchalantly, taking Tadashi by surprise.

"Wait, you want to have a Tamer?" the blond asked in shock.

"Heck yeah! That way I can get stronger without having to load other digimons' data. Come on, what do you say?"

Tadashi thought about it for a second. He did want to have a partner, but to have it happen so sudden… "Sure. On one condition."

"And what is that?" the lion asked, curious.

"We get stronger and then we go to the digital world to save my friends," Tadashi told the digimon.

"Okay, that's good enough for me!" the digimon exclaimed, shaking the blond's hand. Then Tadashi heard a throat clear.

"You know, this is interesting and all, but, this sudden?" the duo looked in the direction of the street to see Beelzemon watching them, smirking.

"Tadashi! That's an evil digimon. It's a Mega, though, but I think you can make me digivolve!" Coronamon exclaimed.

"Don't worry about me, bub," the biker told the group. "I'm on your side!"  
"Yeah, you helped out during the D-Reaper invasion, right?" Tadashi inquired, smiling.

"Yup! That's when my partners got their digivice, too." Beelzemon grinned widely.

"How do we know you're telling the truth?" Coronamon asked, angrily.

Beelzemon shrugged. "Well, I ain't gonna shoot you, I promise you that. We need more Tamers around here, anyway. By the way, those are pretty lofty goals."

"Were… were you there when the others disappeared?" Tadashi asked nervously, severely intimidated by the sight of Beelzemon.

The mega nodded before adopting a somber expression. "Yeah, I was, but I blacked out as soon as I got to the field. Apparently whoever it was didn't want a digimon without a partner. And because of that, the only Tamers left are mine and Suzie."

Tadashi nodded somberly. "Have any idea what it was that took them?"

"Not a clue," Beelzemon responded. "By the way: see any other digimon running around here? I checked both digital fields and found nothing."

"Commandramon escaped? That's… that's crazy!" Coronamon exclaimed, his voice filled with worry.

"Oh, great, a Commandramon, huh?" Beelzemon grumbled. "Not my cup of tea, that's for sure."

"Yeah, no kidding!" Coronamon exclaimed.

"So, want to come to my house after trying to find the Commandermon?" Tadashi asked the digimon.

"It's actually Commandramon, but sure! Not like I have anywhere else to go," Coronamon responded cheerfully.

"Just so you know; I don't want to tell my parents about you yet. I don't know what they'll think of you being around."

"Worse comes to worse, you could always have him stay at Hypnos," Beelzemon suggested. "By the way, you're going to have to contact them." The Mega reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. "I fill my pocket with these before coming to each bioemergence in case I run into any new guys like you. Just call this number here. Don't worry, Hypnos just needs to know about you but you don't have to work for them. They do pay well, though."

"Ooh, money… that sounds good!" Coronamon exclaimed.

"I didn't think they had money in the digital world," Tadashi said, slightly confused over the conflict between what he heard about the digital world from his friends and what this digimon said.

"Oh, where I live just got new management, so we got money too. It kind of mucks everything up, though," the lion commented.

"By the way, Hypnos has some extra training for Tamers if you decide to work for them," Beelzemon added. "I guess I'll be off. See you around kid."  
Then the digimon spread his wings out and flew off as Tadashi looked on in awe.

"So, ready to save your friends?" the digimon asked.

"We have to get stronger first," the blond said with a smile.

They shook their hands yet again as a burst of glowing energy formed above their heads. Tadashi grabbed hold of it, knowing what it was. As he grabbed onto it, he saw that it was a red-orange-ringed digivice.

It was official. They were Tamers.

###

After looking for Commandramon and failing, the Tamer and partner headed home. Sneaking into the apartment, Tadashi looked both ways before hurrying with Coronamon past all the furniture and into the bathroom. "We need to get you washed up, buddy," the blond commented as he turned on the water.

"What? There's no way I'm taking a bath. I only use water for drinking!" the digimon complained, standing there with his arms crossed.

"Coronamon, if you want to be my partner, you're going to have to have a bath once in a while," Tadashi commented as he walked out of the bathroom for a second to grab his swim trunks. Looking around, he spotted his brother in the kitchen, looking at him in confusion. His brother, Kurita, was a large, heavy seventeen-year-old and from the look on his face, he could tell something was up.

"What the heck is that smell?" the blond football player asked.

"I… I fell in a dumpster! I'm going to take a bath to get rid of it, don't worry!" Tadashi admonished the larger teen.

"Okay…" Kurita said, not believing it as he drank a protein shake. He had just come home from practice when he smelled… _that._

###

Tadashi changed into his trunks quickly while Coronamon looked in the opposite direction. "Is there any reason why I can't see?"

"Privacy," the blond said nervously. "Okay, in you go!" he exclaimed, grabbing onto his partner by the waist and dragging him into the tub. The digimon came up and spit out some water he accidently inhaled.

"So, we couldn't have avoided this, huh?" the lion asked.

"Nope!" Tadashi exclaimed as he pulled the curtains back. "Let's see, I have some of my brother's weird shampoo. Remember to be quiet." The blond began the process of lathering the digimon's mane.

###

A few minutes later, Tadashi opened the door and saw no one. _Kurita's probably in his room, _the blond boy thought, sneaking out with his partner behind him. Then he walked into his room to come face-to-face with his brother.

"What?!" he exclaimed, spotting the large guy, holding his digivice and grinning widely.

"Man, that was easy to find out. So, you're a Tamer, huh?" the heavy teen asked.

The blond Tamer was panicking. "Please don't tell mom and dad!"

Kurita rolled his eyes. "Right. They'd probably kick him out," the football player said, pointing at the lion-like digimon. "For now, your secret's safe with me. Just don't get yourself killed, okay?" He had something on his younger brother, not that he was going to use it. The two brothers were actually completely in the dark as to their parent's views on digimon. "Dang, man, so you're following in the footsteps of your friends and heroes, huh?" the large teen asked. "You have no idea how jealous I am."

"You're jealous?" Tadashi asked, giving his brother a confused look. In response, Kurita nodded.

"Bro, you remember how I watched Digimon with you all the time, right? I have to admit, it was an awesome show." He smiled widely. "So, now you can save the world. Just don't let it get to your head."

"Uh…" Tadashi didn't know how to react. In fact, he was the one that always looked up to his older brother. He couldn't imagine the guy looking up to him.

"Remember the immortal words of Uncle Ben. With great power comes great responsibility. Just don't light anybody on fire while you go fight crime."

"Please, like we'll do _that!_" Coronamon objected.

Tadashi chuckled at that. He and his partner were so different. Maybe it would help him even out. The digimon was fearless, something that the blond boy wasn't.

"Yeah, there's not much crime to fight here, anyway," Kurita remarked. "Just keep quiet. We'll come in and feed you after dinner, Coronamon. By the way, it's great to finally meet a real-live digimon."

"It's great to meet you, too!" the lion responded in a smile.

Tadashi looked forward to what happened next.

###

Elsewhere, a reptilian soldier wandered the streets of Shinjuku, tired, hungry and a failure. This Commandramon was considered the worst of his squad, but he realized that Coronamon was still at large. He felt that if he deleted the digimon, he would be able to get back to the digital world with honor.

Except that was the problem. He had no idea where the stupid, loud-mouthed lion was or how to get back to the digital world.

"We definitely made a killing, didn't we? Who would have guessed that marketing lemonade as an energy drink would be such a hit!" Commandramon heard someone say. It was dark, but there was a trio of boys wandering around with wads of bills in their hands.

"Oh, heck yeah, man. Tadashi's an idiot for not coming along!" a different boy from the first, this one with buzz-cut brown hair and a black shirt. "Think of how much money he would have gotten."

Commandramon knew exactly what was going on. These were human children and apparently they killed somebody. Maybe the leader of this group, the guy with the long brown hair, would make an optimal partner in crime. The cyborg soldier didn't want to have an actual partner with a digivice. Such a thing would probably cause the Dragon Lord's wrath to come upon him if he knew. Commandramon shuddered at such a thought before jumping out in front of them, causing them to freak out.

"You, the human with the long hair! You will help me find my prey!" the digimon shouted.

"Uh… no way…" Yuji said with shock.

"I think you should do what he said," the buzz-cut boy stated in fear. "Guns are totally illegal in Japan! This ain't gonna be good!"

"So, will you help me make a killing or am I going to have to find somebody else?" the reptile asked.

"Oh, dude, make a killing means making tons of dough," Yuji corrected. "We didn't actually kill anybody."

"Okay, then I'm wasting my time here!" Commandramon complained before pushing his way past the trio. "I don't eat bread, only meat."

Yuji gritted his teeth. He had a chance to become a Tamer before Tadashi, or so he thought, and he was just letting it slip away like that. "Hey, wait, lizard-guy! I'll help you find that digimon."

Commandramon looked at him with bright eyes. "Re… really?" he stuttered out.

"Yeah, sure! Come on, you've got to come with me. I'll give you a place to stay while we find this guy!" Yuji exclaimed.

"Of course! I shall follow you to your base of operations and we can get started… after I get something to eat," the digimon said as his stomach began to growl.

"Sure thing, buddy!" Then Yuji turned to his friends. "You guys better not tell anybody about this, okay? I want to tell Tadashi myself. If you don't tell anybody, I'll try to find you a partner."

"Oh, okay. Sure thing. It ain't gonna be easy, but sure, boss!" the boy with the crew cut, Taizou responded.

###

A/N: Just one of those numerous ideas that's been going through my head lately. Believe it or not, the only OC so far in this fic is Kurita (guess who he's named after). Everyone else can be found on character lists. They also appear as extras in the TV show (case in point, 'Snakes, Trains, and Digimon' has pretty much all of them in it), so I had to basically create their personalities from whole cloth. Hopefully it worked. Let me know in a review.

My ideas for the story, in order to prevent a Kudzu plot from forming, is to divide it into smaller story arcs, kind of inspired by the Firefly fanfic Forward's structure. There will of course be plot threads going through the entire story (The missing Tamers of Shinjuku and the Dragon Lord are the only two from this arc that I can think of). I have ideas going until the fourth arc.

If you're wondering, this takes place in a different universe from my Digital Union fics (there are a few nails here and there, though some things still happen in spite of them). Case in point, Ayaka and Miki's partners are switched around.


	2. Starting the Team

Chapter 2: Starting the Team

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Disclaimer: I don't own digimon or any of the characters in this chapter.

Thanks to CrazyEight for betaing this story.

###

"So, what are you going to do today?" Coronamon asked whimsically as Tadashi slipped into a set of clothes. The blond also had his backpack with his finished homework on the bed. He was amazed that he had actually gotten it done, especially since he had Coronamon to deal with all night.

"Today, I'm going to school," Tadashi said as he pulled his shirt over his head. His room was sparse and contained only a bed, a window to the outside, a dresser and a desk.

"So, can I come to this school place or am I just going to have to stay home?" Coronamon asked with a knowing look on his face as his Tamer gave him a sorrowful expression.

"Sorry, but you're going to have to stay here. I'm not sure what my classmates would think of me having a partner, especially since some other Tamers in my class disappeared without warning."

"Ah, you're no fun!" the lion exclaimed, lying back on the bed bummed out.

"Also, my brother has practice today for a game on Saturday so he won't be around until around dinner," Tadashi explained. "Still, maybe we can do something after school."

"That would be great! So, can I go into the rest of the apartment while you're at school?" the lion asked.

"Sure. We have a TV and there's plenty of food. Just go back inside before two or if you hear the door start opening," the blond cautioned.

"Alright! That sounds good to me!" the digimon exclaimed, smiling at his partner.

###

Arriving at school, Tadashi grabbed books from his locker, headed to his classroom and sat down at his seat. Looking around, he noticed Miki, Ayaka, Jeri and another girl talking about something and also saw that none of his friends were there yet. That confused him. Usually the guys weren't late. He wondered what was holding them, but then he told himself that this was Yuji and that the guy was probably pulling off some scheme or another to get more cash. He sighed at the thought.

What surprised him next was Jeri walking over to his desk as he started to pull out his work to turn in. Tadashi usually got along with the girl, but it surprised him to see her suddenly do that. The girl smiled before speaking. "So, I hear you got a partner."

Tadashi was dumbstruck. "Wait, did Beelzemon tell you?" he asked, surprised that the mega would do such a thing, but the girl shook her head and giggled a little.

"No, Calumon told me he saw a boy with a digimon that looked like you."

"Oh," the blond said simply, a look of surprise coming across his face.

"So, you have a digivice?" she asked and Tadashi nodded, pulling his out.

"I've been messing with it since last night, but I only understand a little bit about it. Do you know anything more about how it works?" the blond boy asked, hoping for some information. Then again, as one of the few original Tamers around, Jeri would be a good person to learn from, even if she was a Tamer for only a little bit.

"Well, if you press this a couple times, you can see what your digimon sees," she said, pointing at the required button. "Press it again, and you get a radar screen." Tadashi did so, causing a screen to appear with a couple dots on it.

"Are those… Other digivices?" he asked and the brunette pulled hers out, giving him a smile while doing so.

"I have one and so does Ayaka," she said, glancing toward the pig-tailed blonde girl with the striped shirt. This fact startled Tadashi.

"What? She's a Tamer?" the blond boy exclaimed, getting a concerned glance from the girl he was talking about. He covered his mouth as soon as he realized he said something.

"Yeah, but she doesn't do any fighting. She became one a couple weeks ago after Beelzemon found a digimon that didn't go on a rampage, so he asked me if I knew of anyone who could take care of her. So, I told him about Ayaka. Her parents still think she's a stuffed animal, though," Jeri explained as Tadashi nodded.

"That's pretty interesting. So, you think she can help me reach my goal of going to the digital world to find the others?" Tadashi inquired, showing a bit of an uneasy smile. He knew that others would probably think he was an overly idealistic kid for having such a goal in mind, which made him nervous about declaring it.

"The thing is… she doesn't want to fight. I keep telling her that she might have to, but she refuses," the brunette responded.

"Alright… That'll make things complicated," Tadashi responded. He noticed that even after that long conversation, his two buddies were still not there. He wondered what was taking them.

###

"This was a bad idea, man!" Taizou exclaimed as the two boys and rookie digimon ran away through the park from a large digimon.

"Yeah? Well I don't see you coming up with a way to stop this thing!" Yuji complained. Instead of finding a rookie digimon to be Taizou's partner, they had run into a large, red dinosaur digimon of the Champion Level: Tyrannomon.

"Dude! We're totally late for school!" the buzz-cut boy said back.

"Well, duh! You knew this was going to happen! Come on, there was always a chance you were going to be late to school. Do you want a partner digimon or not?" the long-haired teen asked before hearing the sounds of an attack.

"Double Impact!" Looking behind at their savior, Yuji immediately decided to continue running with Taizou. There was no way they were going to deal with Beelzemon.

The mega saw the boys continue running and just shrugged. "Great, there's another Tamer here," Beelzemon mumbled under his breath. He recognized the duo from when Takato and Guilmon played with his friends in the park, just like Tadashi. Unfortunately, he also noticed the Commandramon with them. _Great, so _that _digimon is his partner, huh?_ The mega thought.

He was going to have to tell Yamaki about this.

###

Yuji and Taizou arrived in class about fifteen minutes later than they should have. When they arrived, the teacher glared at them. "What excuse do you have this time?" the balding man asked, his eyes narrowed and his mouth curved into a frown.

"Uh…" Yuji started to say, already having the class's attention. Thinking about it for a second, he realized that telling the truth could mean good publicity, which caused his look of concern to change into a smile. "Well, teach, it turns out that _I'm _a Digimon Tamer!" he declared, showing the class his white digivice with a gold ring around the display screen. The class oohed in amazement.

_Wait, when did _he _get a partner? _Tadashi asked himself silently, a look of confusion on his face. He knew something was up. Something was always up with Yuji. For all he knew, the long-haired boy was going to use this to fuel some scam of his. Tadashi was not impressed.

"Well, you're going to need to get a note from Hypnos that allows you to leave class for this kind of thing," the teacher explained. "But, for now I'll let you off the hook. Next time, though, you need that note."

"Uh… okay," Yuji said, smiling and sitting down.

"And you, Taizou?" the teacher inquired.

"Um, I went with him because he's supposed to get me a partner," the buzz-cut boy explained, somewhat irritated.

"Yeah, he's my Tamer-in-training," Yuji joked, sitting back in his seat and relaxing. The brown-haired boy looked over to his friend, Tadashi, who was looking at him as if he was crazy. In response, Yuji's smile got wider as the teacher continued his lecture.

###

"Okay, in order to get the teacher's permission to leave class, we're going to have to have a note from Hypnos. So, how about we go do that ourselves. It'll give us some legitimacy and we'll have their backing in case anything goes wrong," suggested Tadashi to Ayaka during lunch. The other two boys were nowhere to be found, so the blond felt free to talk about Digimon.

"I don't know…" Ayaka replied.

"Didn't you see that sexy director at Hypnos. He's totally hot!" Miki exclaimed.

"Yeah, but isn't he really old or something," the blonde inquired, looking over to Jeri.

"He's in his thirties," the brunette said. "Not to mention, he just got engaged to Riley last month, so he's already taken."

Tadashi took a deep breath. "Listen, somehow I have a bad feeling about Yuji having a partner. Something about it puts me on edge, especially with all his ridiculous schemes and whatnot."

"His schemes aren't _that _ridiculous," Miki objected.

"But for some reason, I get the feeling that the guy might do something with digimon to get more money. Also, if we let Hypnos know about us, they'll be able to back us up if we ever go to the digital world," the blond boy continued.

"You… have a point," Ayaka conceded. "But, I don't really want to fight or anything."

"I'm sure you won't have to," Tadashi said, meaning that she wouldn't have to fight Yuji.

"Hypnos already knows about Ayaka and her partner. She just hasn't made her partnership with them official yet," Jeri explained to Tadashi.

"That's what I thought. You want to come along, Ayaka?" the blond boy asked. "We can do this after school if you want. Maybe we could even pick up our partners beforehand."

Ayaka nodded nervously. "Okay, I'll do this. Just don't pressure me into dealing with bioemergences, okay?"

"Don't worry about it," Tadashi said with a bit of a smile.

"Besides, since you don't like fighting so much, you might make a good diplomat," Jeri remarked, hoping to encourage her friend a little.

Ayaka gave the group a look of determination.

###

Coronamon was surprised to see his partner so soon after school. "Hey, Coronamon, want to go for a little walk?" the blond asked his partner as soon as he walked into his bedroom. The lion greeted his partner with a smile.

"Sure, that would be great! Definitely better than being cooped up in here all day!" the digimon exclaimed.

"Okay, I'll just need to sneak you out somehow. My mom's home," Tadashi told his partner, before looking around while trying to think up a ruse.

Then he spotted a suitcase, causing him to smile. A few seconds later, the duo was out of the bedroom and Coronamon was in the suitcase. When Tadashi's mom asked him what he was doing, he claimed that he was off to give the suitcase to Taizou for a trip that weekend.

After the boy and his partner were out of his mother's sight, Tadashi let the lion out of his suitcase. "I guess we'll need a place to stash this for the time being," the blond said as they hurried down the stairs nervously. The blond hoped that he didn't have to lie to his parents ever again. He absolutely hated it.

"Okay, then we'll do that. Hey, I know, we can use that shed in the park that you talked about!" Coronamon suggested.

"That's a great idea! Thanks Coronamon!" Tadashi said as the two headed toward the park.

###

After their little detour, the two reached the Hypnos building where Ayaka was waiting with a small, dog-like digimon, Salamon. "Hey, you made it!" the blonde girl exclaimed with a smile, hoping and failing to cover the nervousness that was permeating her body.

"Yeah, we did," Tadashi responded. "Sorry I'm a little late. I snuck Coronamon out of the apartment using a suitcase and we had to stash it somewhere on the way."

"No problem. I've got all afternoon. I did all my homework in class today, anyway," Ayaka said before the two entered into the high-rise building.

###

"So, how's it going, Salamon?" Coronamon asked the dog as Tadashi asked a receptionist for the floor that Hypnos was on.

The dog shrugged shyly. She was definitely nervous around strangers.

"You like being partnered with Ayaka?" the lion asked, smiling like crazy.

"I love it! She's a nice girl," Salamon replied.

"That's good. So, what do you digivolve into?" Coronamon inquired, causing the dog to turn beet red.

"I… I haven't digivolved yet. I want to but my partner's too afraid that something bad will happen if I get into a battle," Salamon explained nervously before taking a deep breath. "I heard about the other Tamers that disappeared and I want to help them, but my partner…"

"We can change that. Don't worry!" Coronamon cheered, grinning.

###

_So, this is Hypnos,_ Tadashi thought as the teens and their partners exited the elevator and into the floor for the government agency. The blond boy felt nervous walking around there, even though he had a name badge. He guessed that part of his apprehension had to deal with how the receptionist let Yamaki know they were coming.

He took a deep breath as the two kids walked into the other room. Looking to his right, he noticed that Ayaka looked even more nervous than he did. In fact, the blonde girl looked positively terrified.

Tadashi had to wonder why.

Entering the meeting room, the two Tamers saw Yamaki facing away from them, looking out the window at the Tokyo skyline. The blond man turned around and smiled at the duo and their partners congenially. Tadashi wondered if the man ever took those sunglasses off.

"Please sit down," the man said after a few seconds. Tadashi and Ayaka did so.

The blond boy was unnerved by the whole situation. Meeting new people made him nervous, and that was even with having a friend with him. He hoped that this meeting went well, but Yamaki's intimidating nature made him afraid that it wouldn't.

Looking over to the side, he could see that Ayaka was actually doing better than he was. Or at least, she wasn't sweating.

"So, you're the newest Tamers. Which district are you from?" Yamaki asked, sitting down himself and organizing his papers.

"Shinjuku," Tadashi stuttered out.

"Just like Takato's team…" the Hypnos director stated matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, I'm actually one of Takato's friends from school," the blond boy said. Yamaki simply nodded before talking again.

"Just so you know, you're not a replacement for him or his team."

"I knew that. One of my goals as a Tamer is to find the others," Tadashi stated, an uneasy smile forming on his face.

Yamaki just looked at him dumbstruck. "What's the highest level your partner digimon has reached?" he asked, not buying that this kid could go and find them in his current state.

"Uh… I haven't even digivolved yet," Coronamon said in his partner's place. "I hope to do so soon."

Yamaki stood, frowning. "There is no way I am going to send you to find the others until you have reached the Ultimate level, at least. We hope to eventually send a team, though the Americans are probably going to send one before us since they have a larger number of Tamers."

Tadashi nodded. "I understand."

"Now, I would assume that that means that you are going to be working for Hypnos. There's a going rate of about 10000 yen for each rookie you delete, 20000 for each champion, 50000 for each Ultimate, and 100000 for each Mega. You will also get an additional 25% if the digimon that emerges doesn't require deletion. There are a number of additional rules for you to consider as well that are included in the contract that you make with us. For instance, you may not fight another Tamer, Hypnos or otherwise, unless the Tamer involved is a rogue. Do you understand?"

Both Tamers and their partners nodded.

"Okay, now another thing: there are three shifts. While I'm ultimately the head director, I currently work the day shift. The night shift from five pm. To one a.m. is governed by Gorou Mizuno and the graveyard shift from one to nine a.m. by Rentarou Satsuma. We're also hoping to recruit some more supervisors, eventually. Any questions?"

"When do we start?" Salamon asked.

"Salamon, we weren't going to do any fighting, remember?" Ayaka told her partner.

"Ayaka, you want to help the others, don't you?" the dog asked her partner.

Then Tadashi spoke. "Ayaka, think about it. What would Jeri do? Heck, she's probably more timid than either of us and she still went to the digital world."

The blonde thought about it for a second, trying to get past her apprehension toward this. Still, she couldn't do this, even though she wanted to help the others. "I'll… think about it."

"By the way, rescuing the others isn't going to be a simple trip to the digital world," Yamaki said, hating what he was about to say. "We've been trying to keep their disappearance under wraps with the media, partially because their last known location was just beyond the known digital world, where the D-Reaper came up into it. Now, after several months, the D-Reaper should be microscopic, however, we don't know what lies beyond its realm. There were theories about another world that the D-Reaper came into contact with, however it's a given that there would be nothing left alive in that place."

Tadashi and Ayaka looked at Yamaki in complete shock. "You mean… there's no way we'll be able to save them?" the blond boy asked.

Yamaki's eye twitched. "That's not what I said. When you go ahead and save them, you will have to go into the unknown."

"Well, what are we waiting for? If the D-Reaper is no longer down there, we have nothing to worry about, right?" Coronamon declared.

"No, whatever took the others was capable of defeating Megas," Ayaka stated.

"On the contrary, the Tamers never had the chance to reach their Mega forms when the digimon that took them emerged," Yamaki corrected. "The digimon, whatever it was, used some unknown means to put them to sleep as soon as they entered the digital field. It was a trap."

"Then we do stand a chance. We'll just need to reach the Ultimate level as soon as we can as well as gather a team," Tadashi concluded, standing up. "Let's get this over with!"

"Okay, the forms are right here, Tadashi. Take your time. I'm here until five," Yamaki said, pushing the papers toward the two new Tamers. "Also, look for a Tamer that has a Commandramon for a partner. Apparently Beelzemon saw him running away from a battle this morning."

"Wait, did you say Commandramon?" Coronamon asked, a little bit of both fear and anger coming into his voice.

"Yes. A boy with long, brown hair was seen with a digivice," Yamaki added.

"Yuji," Tadashi figured out, putting everything together.

"Wait, that's a friend of yours from school, right?" Coronamon asked, trying to remember everything he knew about his partner's friends.

"Yeah, he told everyone that he was a Tamer in class today," the blond boy said.

Yamaki reacted by placing his palm on his forehead. "You have got to be kidding me. What I try to tell every new Tamer that comes here is to not publicize their status. There are already anti-digimon groups out there that could prey on you if you're not careful."

"So, we're going to have to deal with Yuji. Great," Ayaka said sarcastically.

"Sooner or later, yeah," Tadashi concluded. "Well, let's get this over with."

The next little bit involved finishing off the various forms and contracts the two of them had to fill out.

###

As the two left the room, they ran into Riley. Tadashi correctly concluded that she was the one engaged to Yamaki since she had a diamond ring on her left ring finger. The brunette woman smiled at the two in front of her before speaking.

"Just so you know, there are special programs here at Hypnos for Digimon Tamers and their partners. For instance, if your parents don't approve of you having a partner or if you're afraid that they won't, you can keep them here for the time being," the woman explained.

"That sounds like a great idea, Tadashi!" Coronamon exclaimed. "If I stay here, then you won't have to worry about your parents finding out about me."

"If you say so," the blond boy said, not so sure about that one. "I guess we could try it. Anything else?"

Riley responded with a smile. "There's also a program that we have for Tamers to learn English. It's using a course designed for diplomats who go to America, but we've had success in teaching a few members of Takato's team some of the basics. You will also work with a certified linguist to polish your accent."

"I'm not sure what use that would be here in Japan, but it wouldn't hurt. When can I start?" Tadashi asked.

"You can start as soon as next Monday, if you'd like," the brunette responded. "How about you, Ayaka? Would you like to learn some English?"

"I know a little from school and playing video games in the language, but I'm sure I need to improve a bunch of things. Sure, that sounds like a good idea. It _is _free, right?"

"Absolutely," Riley replied with an even wider smile.

Tadashi could already tell that the beginnings were being laid for a good time as a Tamer.

###

Tadashi approached the door, afraid of what might lie on the other side. He knew that Yamaki had told his parents that he was a Tamer and he feared their reaction, especially his father's.

He turned the knob, remembering the other times he had gotten in trouble. He hoped this wouldn't be as bad as those times, but he had no guarantee. He pushed the door open and peaked inside. His parents and older brother were at the table, talking. It didn't seem as if anything was different. So, he shut the door, which made far too much noise for his liking.

"Tadashi! You're home. Come over to the table for dinner," his mother called out to him in her foreign accent.

The blond walked over to the table and sat down, plopping his backpack on the ground next to him. He glanced at his father's face and could tell from the neutral expression that the man was thinking. The very thought that he could know made Tadashi sweat. His father wasn't a very big man, and age was starting to do a number on his hair, causing him to go bald, though it still had a ways to go.

His mother wasn't Japanese and both Tadashi and his brother had somehow inherited her brown hair and her slightly heavy body type. The European woman smiled at him.

"So, how long were you going to wait to tell us?" Tadashi's father said, getting straight to the point.

"Uh, I have no idea what you're talking about," Tadashi said, scratching the back of his head. The smile was gone from his mother's face, replaced by surprise at her husband's abruptness.

"He just got home. Let him eat before we talk about that," she said.

"I want to talk about it now. Okay, Tadashi, how long have you had a Digimon?" the father asked, looking at his son and hoping for a quick answer.

The blond boy blurted everything out nervously. "Since yesterday. I met him and then brought him home. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I really am."

Surprisingly, Tadashi's mother spoke next. "Well, you should have him come in. I'm sure Digimon need food too."

"He's at Hypnos right now. I… I didn't know how you'd react," Tadashi responded.

"Tadashi, listen," his father started to say before pausing for breath. "I don't want you going out and fighting monsters. It's too dangerous. Something could happen to you. You could be hurt or…"

Tadashi would have none of it. "Dad! Some friends of mine were kidnapped and taken to the digital world. I want to go and save them. You can't say that…"

The man was absolutely livid. "Tadashi!" he yelled, "Don't interrupt me like that!" The man's voice calmed slightly upon seeing his son's frightened expression. "You know, hearing about your friends disappearing… Okay, I'll admit, it's great that you want to go and save them, but… It's way too dangerous. You saw how that giant pig destroyed a large part of Shinjuku. Heck, my offices were down there so I saw the whole thing."

"Dad, here's the thing, I'm one of only five Tamers here in Shinjuku that can defend from evil digimon like that," Tadashi said. "And I want to. There's no way you can stop me from defending this town, even if I have to direct my partner from my room using my digivice."

The man faltered for a second. "Okay, you can do that. But you can't go there yourself to deal with these guys. It's too dangerous."

"So, what about your partner?" Kurita asked, finally speaking. "Are you just going to leave him at Hypnos or are you going to bring him here?"

"If it's alright with you guys, I'll bring him here," the blond boy said. At least he knew his brother was on his side. He looked to his father, who was thinking. "Can I, dad?"

The man remained silent for a couple minutes. "I'll think about it."

###

"Honey, I think he really wants this," Tadashi's mother said, lying in bed in her pajamas, reading. "I think he really wants to help his friends."

"The proper authorities are there to do that. They'll help save his friends eventually," his father said from the master bathroom, flossing his teeth in the mirror. "In fact, he needs to know that you can't save everyone. We're all very limited in what we can do."

The mother nodded. "I can't blame you for being scared, but what can Hypnos do to save his friends if they don't have Tamers to help out."

The man looked at his wife. "They do. He said there were five in Shinjuku, but he didn't mention the other districts. For all we know, there is a ton in Shibuya, Koto or Musashino. Watch, there might even be some in Osaka or Yokohama. I do have to say that it's pretty funny that he's jumping at the call so quickly."

"He's always been that way. I think part of it is his fear of failure. At the same time, he cares what others think, sometimes too much." The woman shut her book as her husband walked over towards the bed.

"You remember when he first started school, right?" she asked. "He had the hardest time making friends because of his shyness. Then one day a certain Takato Matsuki invited him to his house along with Kazu and Kenta. Now they're all gone."

"It's not like Tadashi hasn't returned the favor. He's had them over numerous times," the father said, getting in bed.

His wife smiled. "Yes, he did. He also appreciated how they helped save the city from the D-Reaper. He can't repay the favor for that unless you let him."

The man looked at his wife. After that, he shut off his lamp and then sunk into bed. "Good night, babe. I'll think about all this."

She smiled before turning off her light.

###

_"So, how'd it go?"_ Jeri asked Tadashi over the phone sometime after dinner. He was surprised that the brunette had called him.

"Alright. Unfortunately, my parents now know and Coronamon is now staying at Hypnos until my parents let him stay here. That could take a while," Tadashi responded, sitting down at his desk in the middle of doing homework.

_"Oh, that's good. It's better than keeping him in a shed for the time being. Sorry about your parents,"_ Jeri responded.

"Yeah, like what Takato did? There's no way I could do that. Still, I heard the going rate for working with Hypnos. Yuji would probably go berserk if he heard about that," the blond said, going over his homework. He also had a book to read for his lit class, though it was safe to say that a part of him dreaded reading it and then going over the supposed themes of the book in his homework for that.

_"I can't blame you. Can you imagine how cold that place would have gotten in the winter time?"_ the brunette mentioned. _"Well, I hope this works out for you. Anything else going on?"_

"Well, my brother's got a game this Saturday. Other than that, I can't think of anything. Oh, and I'm going to take some courses for English at Hypnos," the blond said, causing Jeri to gasp.

_"You're taking those courses, huh? Kazu dropped out after a week because they're so intensive,"_ the girl explained.

"Alright, I'll keep that in mind. Do you know anything else about them?" Tadashi asked out of curiosity, trying to push away the fear going through his mind about the courses he was about to take.

_"Just that they last fifty lessons. You also learn tons of vocabulary through flashcards, about fifty words a lesson that you go over after each lesson."_  
"All at once?" the blond asked, surprised.

_"No, not all at once. They use some sort of spaced-repetition algorithm to sort the words. You go over the words you already learned in previous lessons and then you go over the new words. You also do some reading to improve your grasp of the vocabulary,"_ Jeri explained some more. _"Rika somehow got through the whole course and so did Henry and Kenta, though Henry already knew pretty good English, so it was probably very easy for him._

"What about Takato?" Tadashi asked.

"_I don't know. He didn't talk about it that much. I guess he took the course. I don't know. But I'd try it if I were you and I'd start, I don't know, listening to music or something to help your motivation."_

Tadashi nodded. "Alright, I'll do that. So, any ideas on how to deal with Yuji? I was going to try and talk to him, but I don't want him to know I'm a Tamer yet."

The brunette shrugged on the other line. _"I guess you could do that. Try to do that as soon as possible and don't let him avoid you."_  
The blond nodded. "Gotcha." The truth of the matter was that he was very nervous about talking to his friend. Plus there was the case with Commandramon being his own partner's enemy. "Well, good night."

_"Good night. Say hi to your family for me,"_ the brunette said in her cheery voice.

"Alright, I will. Bye." He hung up his new cell phone that he got standard issue from Hypnos.

He had no idea how he was going to talk to his friend and he felt his nervousness increase as the seconds continued.

_Be courageous, Tadashi. You can do this;_ he thought through clenched teeth and balled up fists.

###

Next Chapter: Overcoming Fears


	3. Gaining Courage

Chapter 3: Gaining Courage

###

Disclaimer: I don't own digimon.

Special thanks for CrazyEight for his input and beta-reading.

###

Ayaka hadn't expected this. She knew that Yamaki was going to tell her parents that she was a Tamer, but she didn't realize that they'd be so accepting.

Still, she wasn't going to go out there to fight any digimon if she had her way. Of course, she realized that she would have to if they were to go to the digital world to save the others eventually. Looking up at her dad, she listened to what he had to say.

"I think this will be great, Ayaka. In fact, tomorrow, you should go with your mom to open up a savings account," he said, smiling. He was in his late thirties and was sporting a moustache. Ayaka looked back, frightened at the prospect of going out and dealing with bioemergences.

Her mother spoke next. "And the idea of taking English courses is great as well. I know you took some courses in school, but those weren't enough to give you a firm grounding in the language."

Her sister, on the other hand, was less than enthusiastic. "I can't believe you're supporting her like this! I mean, seriously, you're letting her take one of those beasts into our house! Ugh!" the girl yelled, hating the concept of Salamon being there. Ayaka felt a twinge of anger come up into her mind, something that she quickly quashed. Now a part of her wanted to be a strong Tamer just to get back at her sister.

"Noriko, that's no way to talk to your sister," the father said, irritated at his older daughter and giving her a dirty look before turning back to Ayaka. "Now, Ayaka, what are you so afraid of?"

"Well… I hate to talk about it. You're probably going to think I'm stupid for saying it," she said nervously, shaking.

"Don't worry, Ayaka," her mother said, smiling warmly. "We'll listen to you no matter what it is." Ayaka loved how supportive her parents were, all despite her older sister's rebelliousness and anger. She smiled, knowing that she could turn to them for anything and loved how supportive they could be.

"I… I'm afraid that Salamon will get hurt and that I'll let everyone down," she finally said, glad to get that off her chest. Her parents stood there in silence for a few seconds before her father finally spoke up.

"Ayaka, don't worry. You'll be fine. The other Tamers of Shinjuku were and they had far more to deal with than you ever will. Just take it slowly. You won't disappoint us." The man smiled. "You're careful. Don't worry about it. Just make sure you get out of there if it gets too dangerous."

"Watch, she'll get killed by the first bio-emergence she fights," Noriko said, doing her make-up.

"Noriko!" their mother snapped. "Don't say stuff like that!"

"Come on, you know it will happen sooner or later," the older daughter replied.

Ayaka tried her best to suppress all feelings of apprehension toward her new job. She looked down at Salamon, who smiled back. They were going to be a good match.

###

At about three in the morning, the blonde girl woke up suddenly to the sound of her digivice beeping. Getting up, she walked over to her desk to try and turn it off, but ended up accessing a compass on the thing instead. The next thing she heard was her partner speaking.

"Are we going to go and get it?" Salamon asked, hopeful that her partner would be able to do this. Ayaka looked down at her partner and smiled. She knew she would have to deal with this fear sooner or later.

_Remember, everyone is still alive. Noriko was just being crabby, like always, _the blonde thought to herself before changing her clothes. "Yes, Salamon, we're going."

The digimon smiled in response. "We'll do great, Ayaka." Soon the two were headed out of the building and into the city. Ayaka ran down the street, hoping to get rid of her growing apprehension toward this job, but to no avail. She tried thinking of ways to deal with this.

_Just think of it like one of your video games, _she thought, heading along with her partner straight into the digital field that had formed.

The digimon that had appeared was a large crustacean digimon: MoriShellmon, a Data Type. After checking her digivice, Ayaka inched toward it, hoping that it was friendly.

It jerked its head toward her and screeched, lifting its body to aim the top of its shell at her and her partner. She ran out of the way just as a powerful water attack hit.

"You're not going to die!" the blonde told her and her partner.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of this guy!" Salamon said, jumping out of her arms, startling Ayaka.

"Wait!" she stood there for a second and then reached down for her cards, instantly realizing that she forgot to grab them in the rush. _No…_

MoriShellmon screamed again as Salamon unleashed an ineffective Puppy Howling at it. The attack merely stung a little and the large shellfish jerked toward the Rookie in front of him, causing Salamon to jump back.

"Puppy Howling!" she yelled again, unleashing a small volley of sound waves on the enemy digimon, who shrugged them off. "Ayaka, do something!"

"I'm trying!" she responded. In reality, she was just standing there. _Maybe I'm not cut out to be a Tamer after all…_

Then something struck back in her mind. _Don't give up!_

Her eyes opened to see one of MoriShellmon's tentacles picking up Salamon and pulling her toward its mouth. "Salamon!" she yelled out, heading toward her partner, ready to attack the enemy digimon herself.

_"Watch, she'll get killed on her first mission,"_ Noriko's stinging words flew through the girl's mind. She wasn't going to let that happen. At the same time, she wasn't going to let her partner get killed because of her own incompetence. So she ran toward the enemy digimon.

And her digivice exploded in light.

**DIGIVOLUTION_**

"Salamon digivolve to…" The new form was an entirely unexpected one for Ayaka, who had been expecting Gatomon to show up. Instead, the form was that of a masked angel with a large, golden sword and a red hat. "… D'Arcmon!"

"D'Arcmon?" she asked, before she grabbed her digivice to see what info there was on this new form, which she misheard as Darkmon. Thinking that that couldn't be the name of an angel, she was relieved when she saw the Romanization of the name. She would have to check the etymology of it once she got home, provided she could remember.

D'Arcmon sliced through the tentacles that bound her and then faced her opponent. "MoriShellmon, your reaction to our presence shows you are unfit for this world. La Pucelle!" she exclaimed, unsheathing her sword and heading straight for the head of the enemy digimon. MoriShellmon dodged, but barely. Then, it unleashed another water attack at D'Arcmon, striking her.

"D'Arcmon!" Ayaka yelled. The Angel wasn't defeated, though, and she got up, her wings soaking wet. She then lunged forward, launching another attack on the enemy, striking it in the head. The enemy digimon was deleted almost instantly, its data floating through the air and past Ayaka and her partner.

"Beautiful…" the blonde commented on her partner's new form, smiling brightly, her fear mostly gone. At least it was until she heard another voice and turned around.

"I wasn't expecting anyone else here," the man said. He was tall and broad shouldered, wearing a standard black suit like one at Hypnos was expected to wear. The man was also wearing sunglasses in the middle of the night, just like Yamaki, however, his presence was far more imposing. To the right of him was a large, fox-like digimon.

"Who are you?" Ayaka asked, shocked to see an adult with a digimon alongside him. She got on the defensive, prepared to deal with him.

The man smiled in response. "My name is Rentarou Satsuma. I am the director at Hypnos this time of night instead of Yamaki. This is my partner, Reppamon."

###

They talked for a little bit. Ayaka told him that she was already registered at Hypnos and he told her about how he got partnered on accident shortly after starting work there. He didn't expect being partnered, figuring he was far too old for it.

"As it turns out, I was a detective before getting this job, though my computer skills are still adequate, if only for paperwork," he explained.

Still, there was one thing on Ayaka's mind. "How on earth did you end up partnered, though? You're…"  
"… An adult? Yes, it was… an interesting situation." The man cleared his throat before speaking some more. "Reppamon emerged in his rookie form of Kudamon. He was a calm, docile digimon who didn't attack the Tamers and so they brought him to Hypnos to see if we could bring him back."

"Yes, it was quite the story," Reppamon said, sitting down next to his partner. "You see, I started loitering around Inspector Satsuma while he worked. We got along well and got to know each other. Then one day, a digivice appeared from out of mid-air."

"You should have seen the look on my wife's face when I brought him home. She thought he was a pet," Satsuma said before laughing a little bit at his own history.

"Thankfully, she sees me as a member of the family," Reppamon told the girl.  
The tall man glanced at his watch. "Anyway, I guess we had better get back to headquarters. Keep in mind that I usually get bioemergences in the middle of the night so you don't have to get up to get them. Well, unless you don't have school in the morning or something."

Ayaka smiled. "Well, it was good talking to you, Mr. Satsuma."

The tall man nodded and turned away, about to get on the back of his partner. "Likewise, Ayaka. Until we meet again."

"Yeah, bye."

"So, how are we going to deal with sleeping arrangements tonight?" D'Arcmon asked her partner, causing the blonde to face her as Reppamon rode off.

"Good question. You know… Where do you want to sleep?"

"Well, I'm a bit tall to walk around your apartment, so I guess the most practical solution would be for me to sleep on the roof until I devolve back into my Rookie form," she said, causing Ayaka to gasp. She did not want her partner to sleep up there.

"Are you sure. I'm sure you could duck while walking through my house," the blonde suggested, hoping to make her partner at least comfortable.

"Unfortunately, it would be rather uncomfortable," D'Arcmon remarked. She didn't like cramped spaces one bit.

Ayaka didn't want to get out of her partner's comfort zone, even though they would probably be doing a lot of things that weren't exactly what she would consider comfortable. "Still, it's dirty up there. Are you sure you don't want to find an alternative?"

"I'm a digimon. I'm used to less than ideal living conditions. After all, I did have to live through the D-Reaper invasion." The angel didn't like to dredge of memories of that time, however she would use it to prove a point.

The blonde girl nodded. "Okay, then, shall we go home?"

"Sure. I will drop you off on your balcony if that's alright?" the angel asked, wanting to be a good partner for her Tamer. Ayaka agreed.

"That's a good idea."

###

The next morning, Ayaka went up to the roof after eating breakfast and getting dressed to find her partner still in her Champion form. She was sitting cross-legged, sleeping. _Is this how angels sleep? _The blonde asked herself before rousing her partner. D'Arcmon looked up at her, slightly startled.

"I'm still at this level?" she asked, surprised.

"Well, at least that means you can take me to school. If you want, of course. You also don't have to hang around my apartment, either." Ayaka was trying to see the bright side to all of this. She was a Tamer, her partner was one of the first of the new team to digivolve, and she was, for the most part, past her fears of battle. She kept on telling herself that it was just like playing a video game, even though it could have life-or-death situations. She hoped that she wouldn't have to deal with any for a while.

"That is true. However, I kind of wish we would have asked Satsuma if there was a way to reverse digivolution," the angel responded. "Perhaps after dropping you off at school, I can do that. You'll just have to direct me to your school in the meantime."

Ayaka nodded. "Okay, I'll tell you while we fly."

###

After dropping Ayaka off, D'Arcmon decided to pay Hypnos a visit, heading straight for the twin-towered building in the middle of Shinjuku. She landed on the roof and found a Hypnos agent waiting for her.

"Hello, on behalf of Yamaki, I am to ask what you are doing here," the agent asked, decked in a black suit and black sunglasses. Hypnos had spotted the digimon from far away and the agent had been sent up to investigate and make sure that the digimon was friendly.

"I would like to see Yamaki," D'Arcmon responded. "I am currently stuck at the Champion Level and I would like to know if there is a way to revert to Rookie."

The agent nodded. "Come with me," he said, guiding the angel into the elevator. She had to duck a little bit, something which was a bit uncomfortable for her; however she was willing to endure it. She also felt a little cramped inside the building. Maybe this form wasn't meant for indoor use.

The agent led her to a room where Yamaki was helping monitor the barriers between worlds. D'Arcmon felt a bit less cramped inside this room, since it was larger, and was relieved when the blond man finally turned toward her.

"Hello, how may I help you?" Yamaki asked, somewhat paranoid of a digimon in the building that didn't have a partner with her.

"I am Ayaka's partner digimon. What I would like to know is if there is any way for me to revert back to my Rookie form," the angel responded. The blond man nodded in understanding.

"Generally the first few times a partner digimon digivolves, it takes a while to revert. Currently, there is no way to alleviate this problem, though apparently a friend of Mizuno's is trying to figure out a way past it. You should ask him when you get the chance."

"Who should I ask? Mizuno or his friend?" the digimon inquired, slightly confused about Yamaki's word choice.

"Mizuno. From what I know, his friend lives thousands of miles away from here, but he is working on an upgrade to the digivice's operating system," the blond man explained, hoping he made his point clear. "He should be in a little bit later. Usually he comes into work a few hours early to test out some programs he's cooked up."

D'Arcmon nodded. "Understood. Do you mind if I wait here for a little bit until Ayaka gets off school?"

"That's fine. There's also a cafeteria nearby if you're interested," the director explained.

###

"So, how did your parents react to you being a Tamer?" Ayaka looked to see Tadashi asking her the question. They were in the cafeteria at lunch.

"They were completely fine with it. I was surprised," she responded. "My sister, on the other hand…"

"Do you and your sister not get along or something?" the blond asked. He was somewhat curious, since he never had a sister and he had always gotten along with his brother. They had their disagreements every so often, but it was never anything major.

"She's just going through a phase," Ayaka responded. Yuji and Taizou showed up as she said that last one.

"Man, is it just me or is your sister always going through a phase," Yuji asked, grinning slightly.

The blonde glared at him. "She can be nice… sometimes."

Then the long-haired boy sat down, smiling widely. "Oh, by the way, I have a deal for you guys. How would you guys like partners?" he offered. "Just a mere 1000 yen per digimon, if you'd like."

Tadashi looked with disgust at the idea. "You're selling digimon?"

Yuji shook his head. "Nah, I'm just selling you guys reserve spots for partners."

"Yeah, think of this as a pre-order," Taizou responded, trying to sport a grin, but only making it slightly. In reality, he was really uncomfortable with this as well, especially since Yuji hasn't quite delivered in getting him his partner. "You know, like for video games."

Yuji continued to push his offer. "Come on, think about it! We can be some of the only Tamers in school. Wouldn't that be sweet?"

Her dislike of their offer made Ayaka glad she had a good reply. "No, I've already got a partner," she said, rejecting the offer with a bit of a smile.

"What? How come you haven't told anyone else?" Yuji asked in serious confusion. He really wasn't prepared for that response. "You're lying."

"Nope. I even digivolved her to Champion," the blonde girl boasted, not intending it to come out in such a way.

"What do you have?" Taizou inquired. He wondered what a girl like Ayaka could possibly have.

"I have a Salamon," Ayaka responded.

"Salamon?" Yuji asked, disgusted. "Man, and she digivolves into Gatomon, too, doesn't she? I hate cats! They're so lazy and useless."

Ayaka glared at the long-haired boy. "You're lazy and useless!" she exclaimed, getting up. "And by the way, she becomes D'Arcmon, an angel, not Gatomon. Got it?"

Yuji nodded, slightly afraid of incurring the wrath of the girl.

The blonde sat back down as Jeri came by. "So, what's going on?" the brunette asked Tadashi.

"Oh, Yuji just trying to sell digimon to us," the blond boy responded.

Jeri gasped in shock at that. "What? That's horrible!"

"Come on, Jeri, you lost your partner a few months ago. What would you think of getting a new one?" the long-haired boy asked, smiling with the face of a car salesman.

"No, that… I loved Leomon and nothing you give me could replace him," she told him, glaring at him.

"Yeah, that was pretty insensitive, Yuji," Tadashi said, siding with Jeri on this matter.

"Dude, I totally agree with Tadashi and Jeri. That was pretty low," Taizou added. "That would be like telling your grandma you can set her up on a blind date a few months after your grandpa died."

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry. You know, forget this whole thing." Yuji did have a heart under all that greed and he could usually tell when he had gone too far by the reactions of his friends.

"Besides, what would Hypnos think of this?" Tadashi asked the group.

"I can't see them thinking too highly of Yuji's business practices," Ayaka responded. "You know anything, Jeri?"

The brunette shook her head. "Not really. I don't think Yamaki would like to hear about this, though. You know, why don't you go register at Hypnos?"

Yuji sat back and shrugged. "Are you kidding me? I don't need no government regulation." Then, before any of the others could mention the salary, he got up. "Anyway, I've got something I need to do. See you guys around."

The guy walked away as Tadashi decided to ask Taizou a question. "Hey, where's Jeremy?"

The guy with the short, brown hair shrugged. "I don't know. He decided to bail on us because he felt uncomfortable about selling digimon. You know, I feel the same way. I'm just worried that Yuji will do something to get himself killed if I don't stay with him."

Tadashi nodded, understanding Taizou's reasons despite not exactly agreeing with them. "Okay, I understand. Well, keep an eye on him. You didn't buy from him did you?"

Taizou shook his head. "Are you kidding? Like I would. He actually promised that I would get a free partner just for working with him. Unfortunately, he hasn't given me a partner yet, even though we found a digimon that was nice the other day. That digimon ended up going to some blond jerk named Kiriha or something."

The three others nodded in understanding. "That figures," Tadashi said, his eyes narrowing at his long-haired friend who was across the cafeteria, getting food.

"Yeah, I might end up attempting to partner myself with the next digimon we encounter or something. He said that I would get a partner, so I might as well." Really Taizou was starting to approach the limit of how much he could stand his best friend.

Just then, the bell rang. "Well, see you guys back in class," Tadashi said, getting up to go to his locker.

"Alright, see you later!" Taizou exclaimed.

"See ya!" both Ayaka and Jeri said, getting up as well.

###

"So, since you've digivolved to Champion, does that mean that you're over your fears?" Tadashi asked Ayaka as they walked out of the building. Ayaka hadn't really thought about that much since the night before, though.

"I guess we'll have to wait and see," she said. "I don't want to end up in a position where either me or my partner will get hurt, but it's kind of inevitable dealing with all these wild digimon."

Tadashi nodded. "Well, at least your parents are supportive. Mine won't let me go out with my partner to fight enemy digimon." Really, he was somewhat willing to go along with that, though there were bound to be times when it would be hard to obey that rule. At least he could watch the battle through his partner's eyes using the digivice.

"Yeah?" Ayaka noticed a figure in the distance. "Here she comes!"

D'Arcmon landed in front of her partner and her friend, amazing Tadashi. "This is your partner's Champion form, huh? Awesome!"

"So, any luck at Hypnos?" Ayaka asked hopeful but not holding her breath.

"They said that I won't be able to control it for the first few digivolutions. Also, apparently Mizuno has a friend that is working on a solution." D'Arcmon was a little disappointed by the news, and so was Ayaka, however, the blonde girl nodded in understanding.

"Well, maybe we should go see Mizuno later on, then. What do you think, Tadashi?" Ayaka asked her friend, smiling at him.

"That would be great. Great, this is starting to remind me a lot of yesterday," he said, putting his arms behind his head in a stretching position.

"If you want, I can fly you there," D'Arcmon offered.

"Sure!" Tadashi exclaimed as the angel picked the two of them up and flew them to the Tokyo Metropolitan Building. Upon landing, however, something unexpected happened: D'Arcmon reverted back to her Rookie form of Salamon.

"Wow, that definitely took a while," Ayaka commented, surprised that it would happen so suddenly after the digimon let them down. She was both relieved that her partner could finally devolve and bummed that she now had to find another way home.

"I know. I almost need a nap," the small dog said groggily.

"I bet," Tadashi said. "So, to Mizuno, right? Hey, didn't Yamaki say something about his shift starting at five?"

"He told me earlier that he comes here early a lot to test new programs out," the blond girl replied as the two entered the elevator shaft.

###

After exiting the elevator, the duo headed toward the mainframe. On the way there, however, they came across a certain digimon. "Tadashi! You made it!" Coronamon exclaimed, running for his partner and hugging the chubby boy.

"Yeah, I did, didn't I?" the blond boy replied, happy to see his partner.

"So, what's the scoop with home and everything?" the lion asked, as Tadashi continued to head toward the mainframe.

"My dad said he'd think about having you stay with us. He also said that I can't go out with you to fight bio-emergences," Tadashi explained, hoping the lion-like digimon got the gist.

"What? That's lame!" The digimon exclaimed. "I can't believe that guy would keep you home like that! I mean, come on!"

"He wants to keep me safe," the blond responded. "And I can't blame him. It's dangerous out there."

The group finally reached the mainframe. There, they spotted a red-haired man at one of the computer terminals, working on a new program while near-simultaneously conversing with someone through a messenger client. The two humans guessed that the man was Mizuno, also known as Shibumi, though his hair was far shorter than in the pictures. Maybe he had to cut it in order to get his current job.

"Excuse me, you're Mr. Mizuno, right?" Ayaka asked, not wanting to interrupt his work. He turned around to face them, smiling.

"Yes, that would be me. You must be Ayaka and Tadashi, correct?" the man asked. Tadashi was surprised at the man's receding hairline. He also looked over at the messenger program and could make out a few of the words on it, though not much, since it was in English and he had forgotten most of it since learning some in Elementary School. That was yet another reason to take up those classes.

"Yeah, that's us," Tadashi responded, smiling widely.

"We understand you've been working on a way to de-digivolve our partners using our digivices, right?" the blonde girl asked, receiving a nod from Shibumi.

"Actually, a friend of mine is working on an entire upgrade to the digivice's operating system, though there have been some delays due to some family problems coming up," the man said, turning toward the screen. "I actually have some of the source code for the new operating system on here, though only my friend has the complete files."

"Is your friend also a Tamer?" Tadashi asked, not knowing what to expect.

"Yes, he is. One of his motivations involves his partner digimon, who had been stuck at the champion level for quite a while," Mizuno responded. "Unfortunately, a few of the other features are still a little bit buggy. He also might end up having to release it without the application feature that he had been working on for the time being."

"And he's an adult?" the blond boy asked, surprised and not sure what to think about it.

"So is Satsuma, the other director here," Ayaka explained.

"But, an adult? How did _that _happen? Besides, it's not like we can have a team with a mix of kids and adults. There's something about that that doesn't seem right. I don't know why." Really, the whole concept of having an adult there telling them what to do while they're in the digital world _really _didn't sit well with Tadashi.

"Well, anyway, my friend has had to shoulder some unexpected familial responsibilities while balancing that out with this. It has been a difficult few months. Still, something could be coming soon. I'll let you know when something comes up."

"That sounds good," Tadashi replied, looking forward to it.

###

Returning home, Ayaka plopped down on the couch with an exhausted Salamon. She was glad that most of the day was finally over. Still, she felt a bit apprehensive. She was still afraid of potentially getting hurt in a digimon battle, despite having a partner with the ability to digivolve to the Champion level.

Feeling a little bit of trepidation, she hoped that the fear went away eventually, the more times she fought an enemy digimon. She remembered how when she first got Salamon, she fell in love instantly. Then came the fear of losing her, much like her friend Jeri lost her partner.

She wouldn't let that happen.

So, as she watched TV, she thought to herself that she would be cautious as she dealt with whatever forces she encountered and would try her best to be the best Tamer she could be while preventing her partner from getting deleted.

###

A/N: For some reason, the last scene of this chapter was kind of hard to put together. For the most part, the previous parts were put together over a period of a few nights and then I finally finished the last part about a week later. I need to work on my timing.

This is the third part of a five part arc, the Formation arc. Part four involves Taizou and five involves Yuji. Then there will probably be a couple of chapters (one of which involves Miki getting a partner), before the second arc begins (character six appears briefly in the intro to that. He also appeared in one of my other fics, in case you're wondering, though in a far, far different role).

Also, yes, Rentarou Satsuma is a canon character, though imported from Digimon Savers (known in the US as Richard Sampson. Of course, being in Japan, he has to have a western name).


	4. Falling Out

Chapter 4: Falling Out

Disclaimer: Don't own Digimon.

Special thanks to my beta, CrazyEight, for taking the time out of his busy life to work on this chapter.

###

The two of them made their way through the junkyard where there was a bioemergence, walking past various debris, crushed cars, and other sorts of machinery. The digital field was only a few dozen meters in front of them and so they put on their sunglasses just as they entered into it.

Taizou was a little apprehensive. On one hand he hoped that this was the friendly digimon that would become his partner, however, he had learned over the preceding week not to hold his breath. His best friend's partner digimon seemingly materialized out of nowhere amongst the duo as they moved toward the center of the cloud-mass.

The group spotted the digimon in the center, a trio of gears of an orange color. Yuji, not knowing what digimon they were dealing with since he hadn't really looked deeply into the franchise, pulled his digivice out of his pocket to see what it was. "Solarmon, Rookie Level, Vaccine Attribute, Machine Digimon. Okay, buddy, what brings you to our world?" the long-haired teen asked the digimon, kneeling down.

Solarmon looked at Yuji somewhat frightened by the sight, trembling a bit as he spoke. "You… you're not going to delete me are you? I heard about what happens to the digimon that go to the human world."

"Nah, don't worry about it," Yuji said, scratching his chin. "You look friendly enough. I think you should get a Tamer."

"Can't you send me back to the digital world or something?" the digimon asked, now looking slightly confused.

"I have no way of send you back there. Sorry," the long-haired boy said, though his apology wasn't at all convincing. Solarmon looked on the edge of sadness.

"Don't worry about it," Taizou said, stepping in. "The name's Taizou, by the way."

Solarmon's expression changed from one of sorrow to one bordering on happiness. "My name is Solarmon. You know, I've never met a human, though I've heard of one traveling through the digital world."

"Yeah, that was probably our friends. A few months ago they went to the digital world to find a friend of theirs that got kidnapped," the buzz-haired boy said, smiling. "Anyway, it's good to meet you. So, Yuji, we can be partners, right?" Taizou looked toward his friend, who had narrowed eyes.

"Sorry, but I already promised a guy in Shibuya that I'd get him the next digimon that I found. Said he'd pay five thousand," Yuji stated much to Taizou's chagrin.

The buzz-haired teen objected. "What? Come on! You promised me that you'd get me a partner first."

"Oh, but that was before I got this offer," Yuji stated, annoying Taizou further.

"Uh, Taizou, what's happening?" Solarmon asked, slightly confused about what the two were talking about. He didn't really have any understanding of money, so that meant that a large part of what Yuji had said had gone completely over his head.

"You're going with us to meet this other guy," Taizou said, downcast. Solarmon looked at the boy in surprise, dumbfounded.

"Come on, let's go. We gotta get this guy to Shibuya before dinnertime!" Yuji exclaimed.

"Yeah, come on you slowpokes!" Commandramon chided them.

###

The trip was uneventful other than Yuji calling the guy in question to tell him that they were on their way. Taizou made sure that he talked to Solarmon as much as he could, hoping to develop some sort of friendship with the digimon. As it was, he felt uneasy about this whole thing, especially since it seemed like Yuji was arguing over the phone with his client.

A little while later and the four of them made it to Shibuya, the shopping district of Tokyo. Okay, so maybe there were stores everywhere, but Shibuya was filled to the brim with them. The two of them hoped that they would be noticed as they headed for far seedier sections of the district.

The group arrived to a secluded section. Thankfully, since this was Japan, the thought that anyone could have guns to rob them with didn't really even cross their mind and if some hoodlum decided to pull a knife on them… Well, Commandramon was an expert marksman and could attack from the shadows if need be. Plus, he somehow hid that gun of his so the cops couldn't see it.

The two humans and two digimon waited. And waited. And waited.

"When is this guy supposed to get here?" Taizou asked, indignant, getting a shrug from Yuji.

"He said a few minutes," Yuji stated defensively, leaning against a brick wall and watching as a pair of hoodlums traded illegal substances a few dozen meters from where they stood.

Solarmon was not impressed. "I personally don't like this place. You know, if this client of yours doesn't show, I can go with Taizou. This person that we're supposed to be meeting obviously doesn't care _that _much."

Yuji narrowed his eyes at the conglomeration of gears. He was going to get his money, and that was final. Then, in the distance, he spotted his client: a taller, bulkier fifteen-year-old wearing a blue suit and tie, looking at his watch. Obviously, he went to a high school that required such a get-up. The long-haired teen pointed him out. "There he is!"

"Oh, great, here we go," Taizou said, not liking this. Something in the air just got on his nerves. That and he noticed that Solarmon didn't seem to like it either. The quartet, Commandramon hiding in camouflage, walked toward the client.

"There you are! We've been waiting like an hour for you!" Yuji exclaimed, catching the client's attention.

"And I've been waiting an equally unacceptable thirty seconds," he responded haughtily in a voice befitting a stereotypical jock, looking at the digimon in front of him. "I had to stop at the pet store before coming here, anyway." Taizou was really taken aback by that. What the heck would this guy be doing in a pet store? Most people in Japan didn't even have pets.

"So, you got the yen?" the long-haired boy asked, smiling.

"Sure, where's my partner?" the client said rudely, getting to the point abruptly.

Yuji gestured at Solarmon. "Here he is! This is Solarmon, a vaccine-attribute, rookie-" The long-haired boy was cut off.

"I don't care about that. You know, this digimon doesn't look all that strong," the client said, making Solarmon feel even more uncomfortable. "But I'm sure that when he digivolves, he's going to kill everything that comes from the other side."

"I don't really want to kill anything unless I don't have to, though," Solarmon objected. The truth was that he didn't care for the dog-eat-dog nature of the digital world and had to arrive at his rookie form through other means.

"Sure you do. Okay, Solarmon," the client said with a bored expression on his face, "You are going to do what I say and when I say it." Then he pulled out a leash and collar. "I'm not sure how this will fit you, but you will wear this at all times. Understand?"

"No! We can't do this!" Taizou objected, his fists clenched and his face showing anger at what this client wanted to do.

"Of course we can. Now, Yuji, here is your payment," the client said, pulling out his money and wandering toward the long-haired boy.

"You know, I agree with Taizou. I don't want to go with you," Solarmon said. "In fact, I want to go with him instead. At least he's been nice to me and doesn't want me to be someone's pet."

The client gave Solarmon a dirty look. "I'm sorry, but that is unacceptable. Now, Yuji, I assume you are still willing to go along with this, am I right?"

"Oh, yeah, just give me the dough and he's yours," Yuji told the guy, ecstatic at being a little bit closer to getting what he wanted.

"Solarmon, let's get out of here!" Taizou said, getting in between the digimon and the client.

"Taizou, what the heck are you doing? You're not getting this digimon!" Yuji exclaimed.

"Don't you care about what this jerk is going to do to Solarmon after he gets him?" the buzz-haired boy asked, glaring at his friend. "This guy is bad news."

"Did you just call me a jerk?" the client asked, popping his knuckles for a fight.

"That's what you are. He's a digimon, not a pet, okay?" Taizou shouted. Solarmon watched on in amazement as the two confronted each other.

"Come on, man, who cares what happens to these guys. It's not like we're going to see them again," Yuji said, gesturing with his hands as the two locked gazes.

But what happened completely ruined the transaction between Yuji and his client. Suddenly, the glow of a digivice appeared in midair for several seconds before it dropped down into Taizou's hands. The long-haired boy looked dumbfounded at what had happened, his mouth dropping open. The client was positively angry at this point and decided to grab the digivice for himself, not knowing that it wouldn't work for him. "Come on, you idiot! Give me the stupid digivice!" he exclaimed as he lunged forward to try to grab the device. Taizou got out of the way just in time for Solarmon to tackle the client, knocking him several feet away.

Of course, Yuji was also angry at Taizou, glaring at him for ruining a perfectly good transaction. "Okay, that was not cool. You planned this from the start, didn't you?" the long-haired boy accused, pointing a finger at his best friend.

"Maybe I did, but only because you weren't going to give me a partner and this guy was way fishy."

"I know what you can do," the client said, getting up and aching all over his body from the gears' assault. "You have a partner, right? So have it delete his!"

Unfortunately, Commandramon was all too willing to attempt it, coming out of camouflage and shooting at Solarmon, who tried shielding his main gear with his smaller one, feeling the energy burns hit his chest.

"Solarmon!" Taizou yelled, pulling out a pair of cards he had packed just in case and sliding one of them. "Digi-Modify, Defense activate!"

Solarmon immediately felt stronger as Commandramon's bullets harmlessly bounced off his chest. The fact was that he hated fighting but he was willing to defend himself.

Yuji was shocked at how everything had fallen apart so quickly. He pulled out his grey digivice along with a card of his own. "Digi-Modify! Attack Activate!" he yelled, causing Commandramon to become stronger. As the reptile shot some more, the long-haired boy felt a tap on his shoulder. Turning around, he received a punch to the face, landing him on the ground. "What was that for?!"

"Wasting two hours of my life," the client said. "I'll spend my cash somewhere else, loser." He then walked away, fuming over the waste of an afternoon.

###

With an added advantage for Commandramon, Solarmon wasn't doing well again. Even though he wanted to defend himself, he wasn't a fighter. In fact, he wished he could get out of there and explore the human world. There was so much out there that he wanted to see, even if he didn't know much about it. True, he still wanted to go back to the digital world as well, at least he had something new to do.

But now, as he fell backwards, he realized he wouldn't be able to do that anymore. He didn't want to give up. He wanted to learn. He wanted to grow.

He wanted to live.

"Solarmon!" Taizou yelled out, getting in between his partner and Commandramon. "Don't shoot him again!"

Commandramon faltered slightly. There was a part of him that told him that this was wrong, but all his military training told him to suppress that emotion and he held his gun up to fire.

"No…" Solarmon mumbled. He wouldn't let this happen.

Taizou was willing to befriend him, to stand up for him against the client for wanting to treat him like some kind of animal.

He was going to protect him.

All the sudden, Taizou's digivice exploded with yellow-orange light.

**DIGIVOLUTION_**

"Solarmon digivolve to…" Commandramon dropped his gun at the sight, not shooting Taizou with any bullets. The buzz-haired boy turned around, shocked at the sight of his partner becoming something bigger, something far bigger. In fact, the digimon could barely fit in the alleyway from the looks of it. Solarmon had become a large, heavily armed blimp. "… Blimpmon!"

Yuji was still angry at Taizou for ruining everything, however even he knew to back down. "Commandramon, stand down. There's no way you can win this unless you digivolve."

"Then that's what I'll do!" the reptile exclaimed.

"No, you won't because this battle's over. Digivolve against a different enemy, okay?" the long-haired boy ordered.

"You're just going to give up, huh?" Taizou asked, surprised. Maybe there was hope for this friendship, after all.

"Yeah, pretty much. Here's the thing man, if it weren't for you getting all mushy over there and partnering with my 5000 yen, we wouldn't be in this mess," Yuji said, a dirty look on his face.

"Oh, come on, man, you were going to sell him to some sort of slave-driver!" Taizou exclaimed.

"Yeah? Well, here's the number one rule of selling stuff. You shouldn't care about what the customer does with what he buys afterwards," the long-haired boy said, angrily, clenching his fists.

"Well, maybe you shouldn't be selling living things!" Taizou exclaimed, walking toward his digimon.

"Yeah? I guess this friendship is officially over!" Yuji yelled as Blimpmon let a rope-ladder down from his starboard side and Taizou climbed it.

"Well, I don't want to be friends with someone like you anyway!" the buzz-haired boy yelled back, climbing up and into the cockpit. The ladder came back up and Blimpmon flew away, heading off into the distance.

###

After landing Blimpmon on the roof of his apartment building, Taizou made his way down to his apartment, entered, walked past his mother and sister who were calmly eating dinner and went in his room, shutting his door shut. He wasn't in the mood for anything.

His friendship was ruined and he was a Tamer.

He held his digivice up and looked into it. What had he gotten himself into? Now he had the duty to go and deal with bioemergences for real and with his own partner to boot. He wasn't sure whether he was ready for this or not. True, he had wanted a partner, but now he didn't know if he was qualified.

That and he would have to tell his mother sooner or later.

He was about to rest his eyes when his mother entered into the room. She wasn't a very tall woman nor was she very good looking. She held her brown hair back in a bun and wore a simple blue dress. The look on her face showed her concern for her downtrodden son.

"Taizou, is everything alright?" she asked, hoping for an answer. After several seconds, the boy sat up on his bed and spoke.

"No, it's not. Yuji and I had a falling out," he said, holding his digivice and hoping she didn't notice. He would have to tell her sooner rather than later. He might as well tell her now. "Mom… I'm… I'm a Digimon Tamer."

The woman's face showed shock. She didn't know what to say to that one. True, she kind of had something like that in the back of her mind for a while since her son hung around the heroes of the D-Reaper invasion, but so soon…

"Taizou, I want you to know that I'll always love you, no matter what you do in life," she said. She didn't want him to be put in harm's way; however she knew that he had a strong sense of duty that would keep her from preventing him from dealing with these enemies. "Just… Be safe. It's a dangerous job and I don't know why you children have to deal with it yourselves."

The brown-haired boy looked down at his digivice. It was easier to tell her than he thought it would be. "I… I'll be careful. Don't worry, mom."

"And about Yuji, you'll get over it. Who knows, maybe you'll be friends again. In the meantime, there's always Tadashi or one of the other kids from school. Remember, just because your friendship fell apart doesn't mean it's the end of the world." Coming from a woman who had to deal with a divorce shortly after giving birth to him, she knew what she was talking about.

Taizou looked her in the eyes with a slight smile. "Thanks."

"So, where _is_ this partner of yours?" the woman asked, putting her hands on her hips and smiling. Her son raised his eyebrows.

"He's flying around. Unfortunately, he's a bit big for this apartment and we worried that someone would call the cops on him if they find him up there," Taizou said, gesturing toward the ceiling. He hoped that when people saw him in the sky that they'd think he was just a regular, brown blimp. "If you want, you can meet him a little later on."

"I'd love to. Whenever you feel like it. Don't be in too much of a hurry. Also, there's food for whenever you're ready." She turned and walked out the door, hoping that her son got better. In the meantime, Taizou got up and turned on his desktop computer.

###

The next day, a bioemergence appeared. Since it was the weekend, just about any of the Tamers could arrive at the site. Though, since it was the top of a building, chances were that only someone with the ability to fly would make it there. Because Blimpmon still hasn't devolved and because Taizou was flying him around, he decided to send the brown battle-ship towards the emergence site.

"Scanning fog… It seems we have a large figure inside of it," Blimpmon said while Taizou rode in the cockpit. Blimpmon's cramped insides were very utilitarian with rust-colored walls and seats attached to the sides with the exception of the pilot and co-pilot seats. Not to mention all the exposed pipes inside that made it look like a steampunk nightmare.

"Alright, getting a reading using my digivice," Taizou said as a figure appeared, his face getting more concerned as he read the stats. "IceLeomon… Ultimate level? Oh, crap…"  
Just then, another figure jumped upward from a nearby building, heading into the fog. What happened next was an interesting sight to say the least. The two digimon battled after the IceLeomon proved to be hostile and the next thing Taizou and Blimpmon knew, the lion had been hurled out of the digital field and a large, brown rabbit walked out.

"Holy crap, what is that?" Taizou asked as he checked his digivice. "Antylamon, another Ultimate-level… Oh, isn't that a tamed Digimon?" He made a face, moving his lips to the side in thought. "Hmm… I wonder who his or her Tamer is."

In reality, Taizou was somewhat grateful that he got to sit this one out and he hoped that the rabbit would prove victorious.

"Ice King Fist!" IceLeomon yelled, launching an ice attack against Antylamon, who dodged it gracefully. The lion launched a number of attacks, all of which were dodged by the large rabbit, whose arms morphed into axes.

"Treasure Axe!" she yelled, slicing into the fellow Ultimate, creating a massive gash on its chest. IceLeomon grasped at his wound as data poured out of it before disintegrating into numerous particles. Antylamon simply watched as they flew off into the distance before turning to Blimpmon.

"Oh, I do believe she notices us," Blimpmon remarked as Taizou panicked. He hoped that this wouldn't result in his partner getting a premature deletion. Then again, he still had a hard time believing that he was a Digimon Tamer and was still getting used to the concept, so he definitely did not want that to happen. "By the way, I can put you on loudspeaker."

"You can?" Taizou asked, surprised.

"Of course, what do you think that microphone is for?" the brown-haired boy rolled his eyes when he noticed the old-fashioned mic amongst the various dials and controls that were in front of his chair. Then he grabbed it and spoke into it.

"Hey, uh… The name's Taizou. You must be Antylamon. Don't worry about us, we're friendly," he said, grinning uneasily.

"Interesting…" was the giant rabbit's only response.

"By the way, you have a Tamer? And if so, can we meet him… her… whatever?" the nervous Tamer asked, shaking.

"May I ask what for?" she said.

"Just want to meet another Tamer, that's all. There's nothing wrong with that, right?" Now Taizou was really shaking. He was glad that the chair he was in was at least bolted down.

"If you insist… Just follow me," she said, resigning to Taizou's offer and jumping to another building while Blimpmon followed. She stopped every so often to let him catch up. Eventually, the giant rabbit stopped on the roof of a nearby building and Blimpmon landed right by her. Taizou immediately got out of the large, weaponized blimp as Antylamon devolved back to her rookie form, a far smaller brown rabbit.

"Just follow me," she said as the brown-haired boy did so.

###

A few minutes later, they were in front of the door. Taizou couldn't believe it. He was finally about to meet another Tamer that wasn't one of the ones he knew from before. His various worries went through his mind: What would she be like? How long has she been at this? Why wasn't she taken with any of the others? Was he dressed well enough? And isn't this Henry's building?

The door then opened and a tall, middle-aged man with somewhat long hair opened up. "Wait, you're not the Tamer, are you?" Taizou asked in confusion.

"What? No. Lopmon is my daughter's partner," the man explained, gesturing toward the little girl behind him who was grabbing hold of the brown rabbit.

"You're a Tamer? Aren't you one of Henry's friends?" the girl asked.

That was when it dawned on him. That hair, those features. _Oh crap, this is Henry's dad, isn't it?_

Janyu didn't know what to think of this kid showing up at his door after his daughter's partner dealt with a bioemergence. Still, he decided to talk to him for a little bit. "So, what is your partner?" he asked out of curiosity.

Taizou stood nervously for a second, scratching the back of his head. "His name is Solarmon or Blimpmon. He hasn't devolved yet from his Champion form."

The middle-aged man nodded in understanding. "That will take a little while. I know my son's partner usually took a few hours at least before reverting back to his rookie form." Janyu twitched a little bit at the mention of his missing son. He hadn't been so worried since the boy went to the digital world the first time.

"You alright?" Taizou asked, realizing what the man was probably thinking about. In response, he got a shaking of the head from Janyu.

The response was abrupt. "I'm fine. What's your name?"

"Taizou, Taizou Aoyama. You're Henry's dad, right?" the brown-haired boy asked.

"Yes. My name is Janyu Wong. It is nice to meet you. Now, since you know my son, I am going to tell you that you shouldn't go to the digital world after him," the man said with a straight face. He realized what he was doing, but at the same time, he didn't want to have any other parent go what he was going through.

Suzie didn't quite agree with her dad. "But, daddy, somebody has to go after him."

Taizou nodded. "Yeah, she's right. And that's easier said than done. I probably won't go to the digital world, but I have a friend named Yuji who wants to head straight there and be known as the guy who saved the Tamers."

Janyu shook his head. "If he's going in for that reason, then I'm not sure if I can trust him." He then thought for a second. "He isn't the Yuji that Hypnos said is trying to sell digimon, is he?"

"Yeah, he is," the brown-haired boy said, clenching his fists. "In fact, he almost sold the digimon that became my partner to some rich dirtbag who wanted to put him on a leash."

The Chinese man shook his head in disbelief. "That's going too far. If I were you, I would report that to Hypnos right away. In fact, I might just do that."

Taizou looked up at the man in shock, dreading the thought of talking to Hypnos about his friend. "Now, hold on a second. You're telling me that I should turn myself in to Hypnos?"

"If you've helped your friend in any way, you should. They'll go easy on you," Janyu said told him. Tadashi realized that the Chinese man was probably right.

"Okay, I guess I'll go do that!" he exclaimed, determined. He felt like he was about to wake up from a dream with all the digimon activity, his becoming a Tamer and finally doing this. He was nervous about it, most definitely, but he knew it had to be done. The next time Yuji attempted such a sale, he would need to be there to stop him from going ahead with it, lest a digimon fall into the wrong hands. He had heard about some turf wars between Tamers overseas and he wasn't about to let that happen here.

"Well, good luck. I'll call Yamaki or whoever's in charge over there right now and let him know you're coming," Janyu stated, giving the boy an uneasy smile. He saw Henry in him and he wasn't about to let another Tamer end up in like his boy.

Suzie, upon seeing that Taizou was about to leave, walked over to him and asked, "You're leaving already?"

"Yeah, I have some things I need to do," he said, uneasy. He wasn't used to dealing with small children, although Suzie was actually about eight years old. Still, he smiled. "It's good meeting another Tamer."

"Maybe we can fight a bad digimon together," the girl suggested, smiling.

"Fighting is only the last resort," Taizou said, lowering himself to her level, "but if I run into a big bad digimon that's too tough, I'll call you, okay?"

The girl's smile got really wide at that. "Bye, Taizou!" she exclaimed, hugging the boy tightly. Then he got up and turned to leave, waving at the two as he left.

"It was good talking to both of you," he said, walking away.

"Likewise," Janyu said, his hope rekindling. If a team were to go save his son, it would have to include Taizou, despite his admonition for him not to go to the digital world. Maybe in a few months' time…

###

Tadashi's mother found her son busy playing a strategy game on his computer while Coronamon slept on his bed. She and her husband had finally given in and let his partner come stay with them. The woman didn't expect the digimon to be so upbeat or intelligent, even though he really wasn't that smart. In fact, she simply assumed the digimon would be some sort of mindless beast like the Parasimon that had invaded only a couple months before.

"Tadashi, the phone's for you," she said in her slight foreign accent. Her son turned around and looked up, smiling before grabbing the phone from her.

"Thanks, mom," he said before greeting the person on the other line. "Hello, this is Tadashi."

_"Hello, Tadashi, this is Yamaki. You are to come to Hypnos immediately. This is urgent," _the stern man said on the other line.

"Okay. Just remember that I can't go fight wild digimon," the blond boy told the man, hating that fact.

_"I am aware of that and this is nothing of the sort. Instead, it involves your friend Yuji. Come to Hypnos and you will be briefed."_

"Alright, I'm on my way," he said, hanging up and getting up out of his chair before shutting off his game and walking over to his partner. He shook the lion-like digimon slightly to rouse him. It worked, but the digimon was slightly cranky.

"Come on, this is my afternoon nap! Can't I finish it?" Coronamon asked, eliciting an eye-roll from his Tamer.

"Hypnos called. They want us to attend a meeting," Tadashi explained, annoyed with his partner.

"A meeting. Meetings are boring, but if it involves fighting…" the lion said before his blond partner interrupted him.

"We won't be fighting wild digimon, Coronamon. At least not together. My parents are willing to let me direct you from far away, but helping you in a battle is out of the question."

"No fun! Okay, I'll come to the meeting. It better be good."

###

Taizou hadn't expected his explanation to Yamaki to be so easy. It was almost as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He sat there in the conference room and waited. Then, all the sudden, someone opened the door. The brown-haired teen looked to see an unfamiliar strawberry-blond man looking around in confusion.

"Have you seen Yamaki around?" he asked.

"Uh, he left for a few minutes to call my friends. What is it?" Taizou deduced that the man was most likely another worker there at Hypnos.

"Well, I was hoping to talk to him about this for approval first, but I guess I could talk to you about it. A colleague of mine who used to go to Palo Alto with us has finished his upgrade of the D-Arc's operating system," the man explained. "By the way, my name is Gorou Mizuno."

Taizou now understood the importance of the middle-aged man in front of him and realized who he was from the information packet that he read. "So you're Shibumi. Wait, how could this guy create this new operating system without a digivice?"

"That's the thing. My friend has two digivices to work on, one of them his own and the other belonging to his son, a non-Tamer. I know it may come to a shock, but my friend has been a Tamer since our college days."

Taizou had a hard time believing that one. "And how old is he again?"

"Thirty-seven. So, I guess he's been a Tamer for eighteen years. The digimon was a new species that had appeared in our experiments back then and somehow it bioemerged. It scared Daisy so that she destroyed all our monitors to keep it from emerging, but somehow my friend ended up encountering it instead a little later on." Seeing the blank stare from Taizou, he said, somewhat embarrassed. "Sorry, I kind of rambled on again, didn't I?"

Taizou smiled at that one. "Don't worry, it's alright. This is going to be interesting. I've got to see his new program."

"What new program?" the two turned to see Tadashi and Coronamon at the door. The blond was the one who had spoken.

"Shibumi said that apparently this Tamer he knows created a new operating system for the digivice. I just gotta know what it contains, being the tech geek that I am," the brown-haired boy said, smiling. "Also, what language did this friend of yours use to make it?"

"He designed the new operating system using C++," Mizuno explained, glad that he had found someone among the group that had an interest in computer science. The answer naturally went way over Tadashi's head but Taizou knew exactly what the guy was talking about.

Taizou scratched the back of his head. "C++ is hard, man. Especially pointers. Man, who created such an evil feature? Besides, when do you ever need a variables address?"

"Yes, I hear they can be a bit hard to get used to. Then again, I disassembled my parents' computer by hand and wrote everything down in notebooks. That was back in the seventies, though."

Tadashi had just about enough of what they were talking about. "Uh, so, what am I here for again?"

"Yamaki wanted us to get together and have a meeting to discuss Yuji," Taizou explained, realizing he had probably accidentally alienated one of his best friends by talking about overly technical computer stuff.

"So, are you a Tamer now?" the blonde asked his friend, smiling at the sight of the digivice.

"Yeah, more or less. My partner's on the roof and he still hasn't de-digivolved. We… we kind of got into a fight with Yuji yesterday and… well, that's what I'm here to discuss." The brown-haired teen frowned and Tadashi had a look of shock since he almost couldn't believe it.

"That… You're his best friend. What happened?"

"Let me guess, Commandramon gunned a digimon down?" Coronamon suggested, scratching his chin and not knowing what he was talking about.

"That's not something Yuji would have him do," Tadashi objected, though Taizou shook his head at that statement.

"Commandramon opened fire on my partner after we became partners. You see, my partner was supposed to go to this guy that paid money for him but he was a total jerk. I couldn't let that happen."

Tadashi now understood and got into a fighting stance. "We have to go stop him!" he exclaimed.

"Yeah!" Coronamon cheered.

"I… I hope we can reason with him and that it doesn't come to that," Taizou said. He still had trouble grasping his friend's betrayal. Or did _he_ betray Yuji? He did intend to partner himself with Solarmon even before he found out that the client was a total jerk.

"I agree with Taizou," Ayaka said, coming into the room with Salamon in her arms.

"You heard the whole thing, huh?" Taizou asked, surprised.

"Yes, I did," the girl said with a bit of a frown.

"Well, I guess that totally ruins the point of this stupid meeting, doesn't it?" Coronamon asked the group, elated that it was over.

"Well, I guess I'll leave you to your own devices," Shibumi said before walking out of the room. "I'm sure Yamaki will be back in a couple minutes and you should probably wait for him."

Tadashi looked at his two friends and smiled. He could tell that the team was almost formed. After that, he would just have to reach the Ultimate level and then they could go to the digital world. Then again, getting his parents' permission for that would be almost impossible.

He just hoped they could get Yuji to listen to reason.

###

A/N: Shibumi's backstory as revealed in this chapter is based on what I read about the guy who programmed the game Earthbound (or Mother 2) from scratch over a really short period of time and saved the project. It may seem farfetched, but it's true. The guy did disassemble his parents' computer byte by byte.

BTW, sorry for the long delay. That was all my fault, since, for some reason, I waited a week and a half before actually doing the corrections my beta gave me. Hopefully the next chapter will take a lot less time.


	5. Hunters and Prey

Chapter 5: Hunters and Prey

###

Commandramon looked over the city from his partner's balcony. For whatever reason, the event from earlier that day affected him. He didn't expect to feel this… guilt.

_"You're the weakest of the squad, unfit for promotion," _he heard his commanding officer say in his mind. _"You're too compassionate. Such compassion is unfit for the Darkdramon line."_

He didn't want to listen. At the same time he felt that if he brought back Coronamon or at least deleted him, he'd be accepted back into his team, but he knew, underneath it all, that that wasn't going to happen. As it was, he was now a tamed digimon, something the Dragon Lord wouldn't approve of.

###

_"So, this is my place," Yuji told the reptile as he appeared suddenly in the boy's room. "If you want, you can crash here until you find this Coronamon guy."_

_ "That would be acceptable," Commandramon said. "This seems awful sparse for a military bunker."_

_ The brown haired boy laughed out loud. "That's because it's not."_

_ "It's not… So you're a civilian?" the reptile asked in surprise._

_ "Yeah, man, Japan doesn't even have much of a military. Not since the Americans beat us about fifty years ago in World War II," Yuji explained, shaking his head and smiling at the same time._

_ "World War II… You have wars in this world as well?" Commandramon asked, realizing that the human world wasn't nearly as idyllic as he thought it would be._

_ "Yeah, but not here. Thankfully, the only neighbor that this country has that's remotely hostile is North Korea, and that country's basically a joke." Yuji went over and lay down on his bed, putting his arms behind his head._

_ "But, what about battle? Don't you humans fight each other on a regular basis?" Commandramon inquired, continuing his look into the human world's nature._

_ "Nah, not really. Maybe once-in-a-while someone around here will pick a fight with someone else. We actually look down on it unless, for some reason, it's on TV. There ain't no survival of the fittest among humans in the real world. Well, except for corporate executives."_

_ Commandramon looked down in shock. "Doesn't life get boring if you aren't constantly fighting each other, though?" the reptile asked._

_ "Not really. Okay, some afternoons can get boring, but that's what we have things like friends and family for." Yuji cracked a smile. "We sometimes go out and do stuff, or sometimes just hang out."_

_ "Hang out?" the reptile inquired. "So, you dangle yourselves from buildings?"_

_ Yuji's eyes went wide at that. "Oh, heck no!" he exclaimed, before breaking out in a laugh. "I take it you didn't get much of a childhood, huh, lizard guy?"_

_ Commandramon hadn't thought of that. "No, not really. I've been raised to be a talented fighter from the very beginning!" he exclaimed, thinking of the glory of his empire. "And to serve the Dragon Lord in every which way I can!"_

_ Yuji sat up. "Dragon Lord? What's that?" he asked in confusion._

_ "The Dragon Lord is the greatest of all Digimon and the ruler of the Dominion," Commandramon explained, amazed that the boy he was staying with had never heard of such a glorious leader._

_ "Yeah? And what kind of digimon is he?" Yuji asked, scratching his chin. "Greatest of all dragons… Is he Azulongmon?"_

_ "No, he is Dorbickmon, a far greater dragon than that so-called sovereign!" the reptile exclaimed, slightly offended._

_ "Hey, hey, chill out! I thought the sovereigns were the good guys. If I remember right, they helped defeat the D-Reaper." Yuji tried to cool down the digimon he was with._

_ "Supposedly. How would you know?" Commandramon asked, spitefully._

_ "I happen to be friends with some Tamers that fought the D-Reaper here in the real world. They said that the Sovereigns showed up really quickly at the end of their battle," Yuji explained, hoping to get the monster in front of him to cool down. "At least that's what Henry, Rika and Ryo said. Then again, three witnesses can't be wrong, can they?"_

_ Commandramon nodded. He was starting to like this boy, though he decided to try to change the subject. "What are these games you were talking about?"_

_ "Oh, you want to play on my old PlayStation? I'll try to find a good racing or fighting game," Yuji replied, getting up to go to his closet. "Nothing in here. I'll have to check my big bro's room."_

_ "Your what?" the lizard asked in confusion._

_ "My brother. You know, an older sibling… We have the same parents… Then again, you probably don't have anything like that in the digital world do you." Commandramon shook his head brusquely. "That's what I thought. Man, it must have sucked being raised to be a killer after emerging from that digi-egg."_

_ "I don't really know any better," the reptile replied._

_ Yuji nodded sympathetically. "Sorry about that, buddy. I'll go check my bro's games. Just wait here for a minute, okay?"_

_ "I shall, master!"_

_ Hearing Commandramon call him that got on his nerves. "Uh, don't call me master, man. We're, like, the same, okay?"_

_ The reptile looked at him in shock before nodding and then watching the boy walk away._

###

That was the day they became partners. Commandramon didn't expect such a bond to form so fast. Still, he had numerous questions about the human world. Then there was Yuji's family situation. In all his time there, he had never once seen the boy's brother. He wondered if he had done that thing that Yuji called 'moving out'.

Then there were his parents. His father seemed to always be talking about the sales he makes at work. And his mother seemed to constantly complain about not having enough money despite constantly coming home with new clothes. The reptile had to roll his eyes at that one.

Commandramon's reverie was broken when his partner came onto the balcony, panicking. "Commandramon, quick! We've got to get out of here!" he exclaimed.

"What is it?" the reptile inquired, not wanting to ruin a serene afternoon. Even he had to admit that it was kind of nice not having to fight, even though it was his duty.

"There are digivice signals headed towards the apartment," Yuji stated. Commandramon nodded. He knew what had probably happened. Taizou had most likely ratted him and his Tamer out for what had happened the day before and now a number of Tamers were after them.

"Okay, let's get moving!" the dinosaur exclaimed, getting up and following his partner.

###

The two of them ran out the door and to the right, away from the elevator that the other Tamers were going to be coming up. He counted three on his digivice's radar and he knew that he would have to get out of there and to the other elevator in his apartment building as soon as possible. There was no way he was going to jail. He knew that the others frowned on what he did, but he didn't think they'd care enough to go after him for it.

Running around the corner with Commandramon, Yuji pulled out a mirror from his hastily-stuffed backpack and watched as Taizou, Tadashi and Ayaka came out with a couple of cops.

_The heck? Why are the cops with them? And what the heck? When did Tadashi become a Tamer? _Yuji thought, looking at Solarmon, Salamon and Coronamon. Coronamon… That was the digimon that Commandramon was after.

"What is it, Yuji?" his partner asked.

"There's just a group of Tamers and their digimon. We need to get out of here, now!" Yuji exclaimed, dragging his partner with him.

"I could probably fight 'em!" Commandramon complained as he was dragged along through the dark, red-walled corridors of the apartment building by his partner.

"Heck no! You'd get killed in the first five minutes. Two of those Tamers can reach Champion! One of them is Taizou from yesterday. The other is a girl from school." Since Yuji knew that the dinosaur would try to go after Coronamon if he told him, the long-haired boy decided not to tell him about him.

The duo reached the elevator in record timing and Yuji frantically hit the down button, looking around in fear as he did so. "Yuji, why are you so scared?" Commandramon asked him.

"'Cause I don't want to lose you because of something I did, okay, buddy?" He was sweating at that moment.

That didn't seem to faze the bluish-grey reptile. "Yuji, soldiers die in battle all the time."

"So? It don't have to happen. Heck, it shouldn't happen. I don't want you to die, man. You're my partner, and I don't want anything to happen to you!" The elevator door finally opened and the duo jumped in. Yuji regained his composure long enough to press the button with the number one on it and then pressed the 'close' button so that they'd get down as quickly as possible.

The next few hours would be harrowing.

###

Officer Hida rolled his eyes at the situation. Why did he have to get all the weird cases? This had to be the weirdest of them all, even topping that streaker he had to deal with who was protesting laws against citizens of Korean decent not being allowed to vote. Still, he never had to work alongside kids with monsters from another world.

"No answer. They're probably out," one of the kids, Taizou, said after knocking twice.

The officer pulled out the master key that he had procured from the landlord and unlocked the door. "Wait, you had a key on you the whole time?" the other boy, Tadashi, asked, surprised and wondering why he didn't do that sooner.

The officer grumbled, hating his job. "Yes. I was only going to use this as a last resort. What did you think I'd do? Knock the door down?" Still, he looked on the bright side. At least this didn't involve an evil clown in the middle of the park. Yes, he got the weird ones alright.

The group entered into the cluttered apartment and looked around. Taizou and Tadashi in particular went straight for Yuji's room. The duo found the long-haired boy's computer and Taizou reached down and turned it on.

"You really think that there's a list of people on Yuji's computer?" the chubby blond asked as his brown-haired friend booted up the computer.

"Uh, yeah." As soon as Windows booted up, Taizou noticed a file on the desktop that said 'List of Clients'. _This is too easy… _he thought, grimacing.

Just as he opened it, Ayaka and the two police officers walked in. "I can't find that guy anywhere," the blonde girl commented.

Tadashi just looked at his digivice's radar, annoyed. "He was here just a few minutes ago. He had to have seen us coming. Come on, guys, he couldn't have gone far."

"But what about the guy's clients?" Taizou asked, not wanting to get carried away.

"We'll just have the cops deal with them. Let's go!" Tadashi said, practically storming out of the place. Ayaka ran after him, not liking this at all. Before heading after his friend, though, Taizou spoke to the cops.

"Can you guys deal with this?" he asked, unsure of it.

"Sure, just call us when you catch the kid you're after," Hida replied, just before the brown-haired boy left. Then he turned away and grumbled under his breath.

"So, you want to print out this list and then grab something to eat?" the other officer asked.

"Sounds like a plan to me," Hida responded.

###

Yuji ran through the park with Commandramon close behind. He was lucky. It seemed that the others had spent quite a bit of time at his apartment, just long enough for him to escape with his partner. And he was almost there.

Looking up at the top of a hill, he saw his destination, the familiar old shed that Guilmon used to live in. He hurried up the steps toward where he knew the portal to the digital world was.

He walked inside and noticed something very wrong. "What? Oh, man, who the heck did this?" he angrily asked no one in particular.

"Yuji, what are you worried about?" Commandramon inquired, not knowing a thing about what Yuji intended.

"The… the stupid government decided to repair the wall in this thing!" the long-haired boy exclaimed angrily, gesturing at the back of the shed where Guilmon had dug a hole before it got filled with concrete. That was also where he would have found the portal.

Yuji was angry and attempted to punch a nearby wall. "Ow! Stupid Hypnos…" he grumbled, rubbing his knuckle.

"So, you were going to bring me to the digital world?" Commandramon asked, wishing that this plan had succeeded and feeling bummed out because it didn't.

"Dude, it's the only way we were going to even escape the stupid government."  
The reptile thought for a second. "Is there a chance there's another portal around?"

Yuji glanced at his partner. "Uh, yeah, but it'll take weeks to find, weeks that we don't have!" The long-haired boy paced worriedly. "You know, we might as well leave the country in that time."

"And how would we do that?" Commandramon asked, not knowing anything about the human world's political system.

"We… I don't know. Hitch a ride on a plane headed for the US or something. Nah, the US would be too obvious. How about Europe or something? Maybe even South America. They can't find us down there." Yuji smiled. "Yeah, and then we'll find a way to the digital world! Heck yeah! Yuji for the win!"

Commandramon rolled his eyes. "What about your brother?"

Yuji shrugged. "I don't know, man. I haven't heard from him in a few months. Plus, he lives here in Japan, so that wouldn't work." The boy glanced at the radar on his digivice. "Oh, crap, they're almost here!"

"Then we should leave!" Commandramon said in a gruff tone as the two ran out of the shed and down the hill. Unfortunately, they were a bit late when Ayaka and Salamon showed up.

"Yuji, stay right there!" the girl exclaimed, nervous but trying her best not to show it.

"Ayaka, you don't have to do this. We can't have the government controlling our lives!" the long-haired boy exclaimed. "We need to stick it up to the man!"

The girl rolled her eyes. "The government is there for a reason. By selling digimon to other people, you risk them getting in the wrong hands, okay?" she asked, irritated, hoping to have gotten through to him.

"Yeah, right, that's what they all say. Don't listen to their propaganda, Ayaka!" he shouted before turning around. Commandramon was willing to fight but at the same time he had his loyalties to his partner to consider.

Then the digimon spotted his nemesis along with a somewhat portly blond boy and stopped. "Commandramon, what are you doing?" Yuji exclaimed before seeing Tadashi. "Oh, crap. Oh, crap."

"Coronamon, you are guilty of subverting the authority of the Dragon Lord! And for this, you must be deleted!" the reptile shouted.

"Yeah? Well, Dorbickmon's a crappy leader. Come on, building an army and defying the sovereigns? That's pretty low!" the lion shouted.

"Yuji, stop! You don't have to be a criminal!" Tadashi yelled out.

"I already am," the long-haired boy responded. He saw his partner's bloodlust. He didn't want to fight, but chances were that his partner wasn't willing to run away, either, so he pulled out a card, just in case. He wasn't sure if this was going to work, since he hadn't done it before, but he was going to try.

"M16 Assassin!" Commandramon tossed a grenade at Coronamon. The time to settle this was now. Coronamon kicked the grenade back and it exploded in mid-air.

Then Yuji slid the card. "Digi-modify, digivolution activate!" he yelled.

**DIGIVOLUTION_**

"Commandramon digivolve to…" the digimon that emerged was one that Coronamon didn't want to see again in his life, but here he was, the tall assassin known as "…Sealsdramon!"

The cyborg rushed forward with a knife in hand, ready to take out Coronamon. Tadashi couldn't bear the sight. He didn't want his partner to die at the hand of his best friend's partner.

There was no way he was going to let his partner die. He had hoped that this would be his moment to shine.

The moment Sealsdramon was about to stab his partner was when his digivice exploded with light.

**DIGIVOLUTION_**

"Coronamon digivolve to…" Sealsdramon couldn't attack now, especially since the glow of the lion's digivolution caused his optical sensors to go haywire. When the glow dissipated, a new, far larger digimon, a quadruped lion with a pair of wings on his back and a burning jewel on his forehead was in Coronamon's place. "…Firamon!"

Ayaka was glad that she didn't have her partner digivolve, since doing so would have meant that Tadashi wouldn't have done it. She knew that he had to stand up on his own. Still, she hoped that this battle would be short. She found it strange that there wasn't a crowd gathering or anything.

Taizou looked in amazement. His partner probably wouldn't have been able to digivolve again so soon after finally reverting from Blimpmon, so this meant that he didn't have to do anything. He smiled at his friend, though. This truly was his moment to rise to the occasion.

Yuji was shocked. He hadn't expected Tadashi's partner to digivolve at almost the same time his did. He was also a bit envious since Firamon could fly and Sealsdramon obviously couldn't. He wasn't even sure if the assassin could even carry him.

Tadashi was glad to see his partner digivolved. Still, he had this nagging feeling that his parents wouldn't be happy to see him doing this. He brushed it aside, making it a point not to tell them when it was all over. After all, Takato's parents didn't know about his dangerous trips out of the house.

"Show him who's boss, Firamon!" the blond boy exclaimed.

"With pleasure!" the digimon shouted in a slightly deeper voice than he had as Coronamon. The fiery jewel on the lion's forehead glowed for a second before unleashing a fireball straight at Sealsdramon. "Fira Bomb!" The assassin dodged before realizing that the lion was unleashing more bombs at him.

"Oh please, is that the best you've got?" Sealsdramon taunted before using one of his techniques. "Scouter Monoeye!" Using his bionic eye, he scanned the winged lion for any weak points he might have before taking the pair of knives off his back, ready to strike. He moved forward, evading any fireballs that happened before aiming at Firamon's head with his knives.

Unfortunately, that was exactly what the winged lion expected him to do. "Fira Claw!" the lion yelled, flapping his wings and aiming at the smaller assassin with his claws. The assassin escaped his enemy's attack, but he missed his opportunity to pull off a Death Behind on Firamon's main jewel. Now Firamon was in mid-air, ready to strike with his next attack.

"Digi-modify! Hyper-wing activate!" Yuji yelled, slashing a card and hoping to give his partner more of an advantage. Unfortunately, despite now having wings, Sealsdramon didn't know how to use them and after flying into the air, the assassin accidently fell to the ground, making him an easy target for one of Firamon's stronger attacks.

"Flame Dive!" the winged lion digimon yelled, dive-bombing the assassin before he could get out of the way, covered in extremely hot flames. The attack enveloped Sealsdramon and as soon as the smoked cleared, the Tamers that were watching the battle saw what had happened.

The finishing blow caused Sealsdramon's form to flicker before he devolved back into Commandramon. Yuji just looked on in shock. He balled his hands into fists and gritted his teeth. "We lost. I can't believe it!"

"Yuji, just give up! There are three of us here with partner digimon," Ayaka told him, shaking underneath and taking a deep breath.

"You call yourselves friends? You're not my friends!" he yelled at them. "A true friend would stick up for another friend no matter what."

"No, that's the exact opposite of what a true friend would do," Taizou explained, his eyes narrowed at Yuji. "A true friend would get his friend help when they needed it and that includes when a friend is doing something stupid."

"No!"

"Hey, look! It's the kids," the group looked past Yuji to see the two police officers from earlier along with a pair of suited men. Apparently Hypnos decided to keep tabs on them.

"There's no way you're going to arrest me, man! And you're definitely not taking Commandramon either!" Yuji exclaimed, ready to fight them off.

"No, you're coming with us," the second officer said.

"Just go with them," Tadashi told him.

Yuji just gave the blond boy of half-European decent an icy glair before the officers cuffed him and took him away. The suited agents grabbed Commandramon as well. He wasn't sure what they were going to do to the dinosaur.

His pride had definitely been damaged that day.

###

Thirty days later, Yuji was released from juvenile hall. The judge had gone easy on him for some reason and now he was exiting the building. He didn't like it one bit.

His anger at Tadashi had cooled, especially once he had heard from Yamaki about who some of his contacts were. For instance, there was that once scientist from Yokohama, who had a name that sounded similar to Tadashi's brother's, who apparently conducted experiments on digimon in his basement. Well, they both started with K's, anyway.

_So, what would you think about this, bro? _he pondered, thinking of his older brother. He spotted his parents waiting for him at the front desk, both happy to see him. They immediately ran over and embraced him, tears coming from his mother's eyes.

"Hey, so, I'm back, I guess," was what the long-haired boy told his parents.

"Yes, you are," his dad said before his tone went serious. "However, do you remember what I told you about Digimon?"

Yuji wasn't going to like it. "I'm not supposed to fight with mine. Got it!" Not that he would listen…

###

"So, anything new happen while I was in jail?" Yuji asked Tadashi the next day at school. The blond was startled as the brown-haired boy sat down next to him. He hadn't expected to see him so quickly. Yuji watched him for a few seconds, waiting for an answer.

"Uh, well, we got our digivices upgraded," the blond responded, grinning uneasily and shaking slightly.

The brown-haired boy slouched in his seat. "And I supposed I don't get to have the upgrade, do I?"

Tadashi felt sweat on his forehead. "You'd have to ask Yamaki or Mizuno about that one."

The long-haired boy shrugged. "I don't know even who those guys are," he replied. "Anything else go on?" The guy's voice was somewhat critical.

"Miki got a partner," the blond added, trying to think of a quick way out of his seat and out of the room.

"She's kind of hot. So, what did you do after the whole incident, huh?" he said, opening his eyes and grinning madly. "Tell me the whole story."

Tadashi looked at the clock. They had a few minutes. He would get a break when it was all over. Actually, he was surprised that nobody else from his group of Tamers had arrived.

"Okay, it all started when we got back to Hypnos after dealing with you…" the blond began, hoping the beginning of the class period would come as soon as possible.

###

A/N: Hopefully updates will be a bit faster from here on out. I'm planning on spending a bit more time on this throughout the month of March. A little challenge I'm giving myself, especially with some of the interesting things I've got in mind. Basically, it's based off a challenge I remember hearing about making a 40,000 word novel in a month. Let's see how that works out…


	6. Upgrade

Chapter 6: The Upgrade

###

Disclaimer: I don't own digimon.

Special thanks to CrazyEight for looking this over.

###

_An overweight man of European decent with curly black hair and somewhat long sideburns spoke. "Now, the upgrade isn't complete, however, I consider it complete enough to start beta-testing it with several teams of Tamers, including the Tamers in Shinjuku who helped save the world from the D-Reaper. The upgrade contains a number of new features, including a GPS-based mapping system." The man showed the holographic screen of his pure white digivice to the camera, showing a basic road map of where he was._

_ "Another thing that goes with the map is that there's a key for it. For instance, on the original D-Arc, it simply led you to bioemergences and showed you the location of digimon and tamers, but it didn't differentiate between the two." The man smiled at the camera and motioned for whoever was controlling it to zoom in. "This one shows not only digivices and digimon, but also the location of portals to the digital world." The map showed a white dot, indicating the digivice as well as a blue dot and a green dot. "Blue dots are other digivices. For instance, the one right here is actually my son's." The man held up an all-black digivice. "Green dots are tamed digimon, red dots wild digimon and orange dots bioemergences."_

_ "In addition, due to the latest advances by the various intelligence organizations in mapping the digital world, if you're in the digital world, you'll get a fully detailed map there as well, thought that feature hasn't been tested for obvious reasons. Heh." The man smiled uneasily before making his closing remarks. "Anyway, I hope I didn't bore you too much with this video of mine and I hope you enjoy the upgrades. There are more that are on their way as well, so look forward to them."_

###

The team was gathered in front of a computer at Hypnos and had just finished viewing that little segment. "Now, any questions?" Shibumi asked the group and Tadashi immediately raised his hand, the middle-aged man calling on him.

"So, this guy's an adult and somehow's a Tamer?" the blond boy asked in a confused tone.

"Yes, he is, however, these que…"  
"What's his partner's name? And what's his son's partner?" Tadashi asked. Yamaki smacked his face.

"Like I say, these questions are supposed to be about the upgrade, not the Professor's partner digimon. However, I'll say that he has a Veedramon for a partner while his son is currently not a Tamer despite having a digivice."

"What? How come the kid doesn't have a partner but the dad does? That doesn't make any sense!" Tadashi didn't like that situation one bit.

"Again, this is not important," Yamaki said, cutting in. "Any questions that are actually about the digivice?" This time Taizou raised his hand and Shibumi called on him.

"So, what's the interface for the digivice like?" the bushy-browed teen inquired.

"Well," Shibumi pulled out a digivice that looked identical to Antonio's personal digivice and showed the screen. "It's a basic holographic touchscreen device. The Professor designed it so that you can see all your applications from a menu instead of having to scroll through them. It's a pretty good system."

"So, applications? There are going to be more apps for the digivice?" Ayaka inquired in wonderment.

Shibumi nodded. "Yes, you're eventually going to be able to customize the D-Arc in various ways. Already, Antonio has been working on an application that, in addition to allowing you to see your partner, you'll be able to communicate with him or her long distance. This will allow even children whose parents won't let them fight digimon to aid their partners in battle."

"Sweet!" Tadashi exclaimed.

Ayaka looked at her friend with surprise. She realized he wasn't allowed to actually deal with bioemergence, though that hadn't stopped him from dealing with a couple over the past week without his parents' knowledge. She hoped that that meant that he wouldn't have to break anymore house rules.

"So, out of curiosity, when can we get this upload?" Taizou asked while scratching his chin.

"Right now, actually," Mizuno said. "I'll just need to link each of your digivices to the computer and it will upload the installer to them before running it. The installer will override the operating system that is already inside it." The man smiled before continuing. "Who would like to go first?"

All three raised their hands. Ayaka did so slowly, Taizou quickly and Tadashi just waved it excitedly. Shibumi decided to start with the energetic blond, who handed the scientist his digivice. Then the strawberry-blond man pressed the digivice's lower button and held it. After a couple seconds, the USB port on top opened and the man connected it to the computer using a cord.

"Wait, I didn't know you could do that," Taizou muttered, raising a bushy eyebrow. That made him want to experiment with the digivice once he got it back.

After a few minutes per Tamer, they all had their digivices back, though it would take a while to actually use them since the installer was taking its time to do its dirty work.

###

Taizou walked home from Hypnos with Solarmon. "So, what's up now?"

"The digivice is still upgrading," the brown-haired boy commented. "I guess this means we'll have to rely on either Antylamon or Beelzemon if anything comes from the other side tonight."

"What? How come neither of them got the upgrade as well?" the gear inquired.

"I asked Shibumi. He said that his instructions were to give the upgrade to half the team one day and the other half the next so that someone could take care of bioemergences while the ones getting the upgrade are out of commission," Taizou explained. He smiled at the sight of the digivice and wondered what it would be able to do once the upgrade was complete.

His thoughts ended up wandering to his friend Yuji, though, and he wondered whether the long=haired boy would get an upgrade as well once he got out. Then again, he'd be surprised if the boy's parents even let him deal with bioemergences. He was just glad that the hustler was dealt with before anyone got hurt.

###

As soon as he got into his room, the boy went through some of his drawers and pulled out a cable like the one that Shibumi used to download the installer for the upgrade on to his digivice. Then he connected it to his computer and checked to see what was on it manually.

What he found surprised him. There was a PDF file labeled "DevScript Reference." The bushy browed boy decided to open it and quietly read what was in it.

"_DevScript is the language used to create applications for the upgraded digivice. It's a basic scripting language, based on JavaScript, and it should be easy for any teenaged Tamer to create their own upgrades to the digivice…_ Cool!" He knew a bit of JavaScript and messed around with a game engine that used the language, so this should be easy. He looked at the basic documentation for the language and raised an eyebrow at one line in the table of contents. "Wait a second. JavaScript doesn't have classes… or inheritance… or enumerations…"

"What are you talking about, Taizou?" Solarmon asked from on top of the brown-haired boy's bed.

"Oh, nothing," the boy replied, chuckling at himself for using random programming jargon that obviously went over the gear's head.

The boy took a deep breath. He thought that the means to create applications for the digivice were supposed to be there, but there they were.

This was going to be fun.

###

As soon as Tadashi got home, he headed straight to his room with Coronamon and pulled out the digivice. "So, what are you going to do with that thing?"

"I don't know," he said with excitement. "I just want to check out the new features that this thing now has." He pulled up the holographic screen and looked in horror. "What? This thing's still installing?"

All the sudden, the boy's older brother walked in the room. "What did you run in here so quickly for? You didn't even say hi," the taller guy asked.

"Oh, my digivice just got upgraded," the blond boy responded. "But the stupid thing's still installing the upgrade. Come on, can't you hurry up?" Just as he asked that, the digivice's screen changed from '26% Complete' to '27% Complete'. "Stupid technology!"

The seventeen year old gave his brother a funny look. "Okay… Anyway, dinner'll be ready in a couple minutes. You haven't been fighting enemy digimon have you?"

Tadashi looked at his brother. "No way. I just went and visited my friend Yuji, that's all."

"What about the time we…" Tadashi covered Coronamon's mouth with his hand before he could mention that they actually fought Yuji's partner digimon.

Kurita shook his head while chuckling. He had an idea of what was going on but wasn't going to say anything. "Knowing me, I'd probably break your digivice if I touched it, so don't expect me to fix it for you."

"Like you could," Tadashi said, letting go of Coronamon.

"So, can I come to the table tonight?" the small lion asked.

"No, you can't. It was hard enough getting mom and dad to let you in the house," the blond boy responded. "Sorry."

"So, you think you can get me a partner?" Kurita requested.

"Are you kidding me? You're seventeen. You're almost an adult," Tadashi responded.

"Right, and adults can't be Tamers. I remember reading about a group of college students in Europe who have partners and they're bound to be at least eighteen," the taller teen shot back.

Tadashi gave in. "Fine, I'll find you a partner. I guess."

"Score!" the larger teen cheered.

Just then, the door opened and their father came in. "So, what did you do today, Tadashi?" the man asked, suspicious.

"Oh, hung out with Taizou and Coronamon and went and saw Yuji," the blond boy explained, leaving out the digimon battle in the park and hoping his father wouldn't notice. He smiled uneasily, but hoped that his father didn't catch that he was hiding something.

"Yeah, we went to the park. It was fun!" the lion exclaimed.

"Well, it's good to hear that you kids had a good time," the man responded, knowing something was up. If his son was hiding something, he knew it would come out. "So, anything in particular?"

"We went to Hypnos and got upgrades to our digivices," Tadashi explained. "It's still installing, though. The stupid thing's taking forever." The blond looked at the digivice to see the screen with the phrase '35% Complete' sprawled across it.

The man nodded. "Technology. What would we do without it?" he asked sarcastically, not really liking that his son was involving himself with that government entity. He feared that sooner or later the boy would have to fight enemy digimon.  
"Play football!" Kurita exclaimed, pulling out his brown American football out of nowhere.

"Did anyone tell you football's nothing like Eyeshield 21?" Tadashi joked.

"Yes, and I'm totally Hiruma," the huge blond joked.

"Really? I thought you were Kurita," Coronamon shot at him.

"Ha ha," Tadashi said sarcastically before turning to his father. "So, is dinner ready?"

"Yes, it is. Your mom made something from the old country this time. Hopefully it'll be good," the man said before heading toward the door.

"Can I come?" Coronamon asked. "I promise I'll be good!"

Tadashi's father stood there for a moment, contemplating the small lion's request. He didn't know what to think, but he figured they'd try it out. "You can, but you better behave yourself."

"Horray!" he cheered, jumping up on Tadashi's bed. The boy's father didn't know what to think of what his son had dragged home.

###

At Ayaka's place, the blonde girl was enjoying the company of friends. She had both Jeri and Miki over at her house. The three were in Ayaka's room, playing a board game.

"So, how's the taming business going?" Miki asked bubbly, holding onto Salamon. The dark-haired girl was very interested in what was going on.

"Oh, pretty good. I helped deal with a couple of bio-emergences over the past several days," the blonde responded, smiling back.

"I didn't really have to fight many digimon in the real world when I was a Tamer," Jeri commented. "Okay, I helped with a couple of the Devas, though one of those was before I actually had a digivice."

"So, who else is on your team? Any of them cute?" Miki decided to inquire, smiling widely and getting on Ayaka's nerves.

"Well, I just have Tadashi and Taizou. That's all," Ayaka responded, blushing slightly.

The dark-haired girl was not impressed. "Wait, you mean the fat kid and bushy brows? How come they got to be Tamers and not Jeremy? Oh, he's so dreamy. Plus, he's half British!"

Jeri turned toward the girl. "That's not very nice!"

"What? You mean you don't like my opinion of the only two other tamers in our age group in Shinjuku?" Miki asked.

"You know, they're both nice guys. Maybe they're a bit rough around the edges, but they're alright," Ayaka commented. "By the way, Yuji's also a Tamer, if you're interested. He just got put in juvie, though, so he's not exactly on our team."

"Yuji? Who does he think he is with that hair? Fabio?" Miki laughed at her own joke while the other two girls glared at her. "Hey, I was kidding. Okay, I'll admit, they're pretty cool guys sometimes."

"So, how's Tadashi doing?" Jeri inquired of Ayaka. "I heard he digivolved his partner."

"Yes, that was just today," the blonde replied. "His partner's new form is called Firamon. He's a flying lion if you believe it."  
Jeri smiled at that, though, at the same time she felt a pang of regret over the loss of her own lion. She would have to visit Tadashi and Coronamon one of these days.

Ayaka noticed the sudden sullen expression after a couple of seconds. "I'm sorry if I accidently reminded you of…" She paused.

"No, that's okay," Jeri responded. "He should be remembered."

"That must be tough, though," Miki added. "I mean, you guys were partners for a little bit before going to the Digital World, and then you lost him while you were there."  
Jeri nodded. "It was like part of my soul was ripped away." Her partner's death reminded her a bit much of her own mother's. That was part of her following breakdown. She held her legs. It had been months since the death of her partner and subsequent capture by the D-Reaper, and yet she was still recovering.

Yet the girl looked out the window and hoped that the others wouldn't have to live through the same experiences she had. She especially thought of Tadashi and his similar partner.

###

Taizou was stuck. So, he decided to contact the idiot who made the digivice's new operating system in the first place. Looking online, he found the man's contact information on his personal website. After misspelling Professor Guevara's last name without the silent 'u', the search engine he used gave him an alternative suggestion.

It was definitely his website. After navigating the website, most of which was in Spanish, he found the man's ugly mug on the 'About' page, smiling. No mention about the guy's kid, though. The page was updated a year earlier.

He found the man's email address and AIM screen name. Since he had the instant messaging client in question, he decided to try it out.

To his surprise, the man was online. Taizou had no idea what time it was over there, but he decided to try it out.

**Hi, my name is Taizou and I'm one of the Japanese Tamers that tried out your new operating system.**

He was glad that he still remembered a bit of English due to frequenting various websites and forums in the language. His speaking skills still needed a ton of work, though, particularly his accent. To his surprise, he got a response.

**Ah, okay. Don't know any Japanese Tamers by that name, but that's alright. Keep in mind I only have a few minutes to talk. You have any questions?**

Taizou typed in a response, checked it over, and sent it.

**I discovered the documentation for the scripting language used in the program and my program has an error that I can't find.**

The bushy-browed boy looked over at his partner, who was lying on the bed, recharging apparently. He had a long day. Taizou was amazed at everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, from him getting his partner and digivolving to having to deal with Yuji and ending his schemes.

**No problem. Just send me the code and I'll look it over. It surprises me that anyone would look at the files in the OS.**

Taizou did so, sending the code as a text file. A couple minutes later, he got a response.

**It seems you used an extra equal sign in each of your if-statements. Most languages use only two while JavaScript uses three for comparisons for some reason. DevScript has a bit of influence from other languages.**

Taizou was astounded. "What? It was that simple?" He looked at the code, and sure enough, the professor was right. He typed in another response.

**Thanks for that. Other than that, what do you think of the code?**

Waiting for a couple seconds, he got a response.

**Looks pretty good. Just gotta work on your technique a little more. It seems you might have a nice little picture-viewing app there. Gotta say, that's not what I was expecting for a new digivice app. Maybe in my next update for the D-Arc, I'll add a camera, though that'll require getting into the code for the physical part of the digivice.**

Taizou smiled and cheered for himself. Then he received another response from Professor Guevara.

**Well, it was good talking with you. I gotta go. Need to make my kid breakfast. Making up for lost time.**

Before he could send a response, the professor had logged off.

That made Taizou somewhat curious. He looked a little bit more at the man's website, but couldn't find much. He found some pictures, though, including ones of the kid, who was in his age group, surprisingly enough. There weren't any pictures of him before six months earlier, though, which he found strange.

_Maybe the guy just got custody._

Then Taizou realized how creepy it would look for him to be looking at the guy's pictures without permission, so he closed the window and shut down the computer.

He thought about what his next little project would be for that. Maybe a bestiary would suffice, so they didn't have to scan digimon for information to access it. Yeah, that would be great.

He would work on that next.

###

Tadashi enjoyed dinner with his family and digimon. His brother didn't make another peep about his desire for his own personal partner digimon. Then again, it was probably for the best. The blond boy felt as if he was starting to run the team, and he didn't want his brother getting in the way of that.

What was he thinking? Okay, he liked his older brother, but he didn't want him to dominate everything. It was just that he finally wasn't in his brother's shadow in something.

"So, what are your plans for tomorrow?" Tadashi's father inquired, finishing up his plate.

The blond boy shrugged. "I'm probably going to go to Taizou's house to do something. Not sure what though. We might hang out and play video games."

"Include me in!" Coronamon exclaimed. "Come on, you know you want to." Tadashi was taken aback by his partner's slightly loud presence at the dinner table, but he regained his composure.

"Sure. Taizou probably wouldn't care if you came," the blond responded. He hadn't yet told his parents that two of his friends were now Tamers out of fear that they wouldn't let him hang out with them. Great, now he was keeping secrets from them.

_Then again, didn't Takato? Didn't some of the characters on the TV show? _The blond thought, trying to justify himself.

"Thanks for the food, mom. May I be excused?" he asked, about to get up.

"Sure," the blonde, European woman responded in her accent, smiling. "Just remember that you have dishes."

"I'll get to them later. Come on, Coronamon, let's play video games!" the boy exclaimed, getting out of his chair, followed by Coronamon.

"Alright, what are we going to play this time?" the lion asked cheerfully.

Tadashi's father looked at the other two family members. "I think he did well tonight," he commented about Coronamon.

"You didn't expect that, I take it?" his mother asked.

"Coronamon knows how to act sometimes, I think," Kurita remarked. "Well, can I be excused to do homework?"

"Sure," the boys' parents replied. They were starting to adapt to life with a digimon in the house, even though they still had their reservations. Soon, it would seem almost normal.

###

"So, my parents are going to be out of town next weekend," Miki told her two friends, smiling ruefully. Ayaka knew something was up just from that.

"What is it?" the blonde asked.

"Well, I was thinking of having a party. What do you say? Come on, it would be awesome!" the dark-haired girl told her two friends.

"Wow, it's been so long since I've been to a slumber party," Jeri commented. "You sure that your parents won't mind?"

"They said I could have people over," Miki replied. "No specifications about how many, though."

"Wait, you're not thinking of having an actual party, are you?" Ayaka asked, surprised.

"Oh, yeah. I was going to invite as many people as I possibly could. Come on, it will be so cool!" the dark haired girl exclaimed.

Ayaka and Jeri looked at each other. They both knew that when Miki was set on something, it would be impossible to steer her away from that.

###

Somewhere else in the city, in an empty alleyway, something was starting to happen. First, there was lighting coming out of the ground followed by a small edifice popping up seemingly out of nowhere. The small shop's front door opened up and three figures walked out. One was an old man with crimson coke-bottle glasses, a green hat, spiky white hair and a white beard who was supporting himself with a cane. The second was a giant clock with eyes, arms and legs. The final figure was a red-haired girl with a yellow armadillo in her arms.

"So, what now?" the girl asked, checking around the corner. It was in the middle of the night.

"Well, I've got an appointment tomorrow involving a certain future Tamer here. And then there's that warning I'm going to give one of them," the old man said with foreboding, grinning slightly. "In the meantime, Mizuki, you can have some fun."

The red-haired girl smiled at the old man. "Alright, I'll do that. It's not often we get to go to Tokyo. Too bad this isn't my own reality."

The old man grinned back. "Well, see you around. Come back if you need anything." Mizuki went away with her partner, Armadillomon. As she was doing that, the old man took out his digivice, one of a different model called the X-Loader and checked for nearby signals.

"Thus the hunt begins again," the old man remarked, his expression turning serious.

###

A/N: Don't worry, these plot points will all be dealt with. Strangely enough, considering this chapter was a bit of a breather chapter.

About the Old Clock-Shop Man: No, he is _not _Bagramon. That's something I'm going to go all fanon discontinuity on. Also, Tagiru wasn't Taiki's replacement in this continuity's version of Xros Wars Hunters (now that's something I would like to rewrite someday...). And, yes, levels existed in this Continuity's version of Xros Wars. Mwahahah!

And Mizuki is a (really minor one-shot) character from that series. I figured that she can't have Submarinemon in that form all the time, right? So, she's using his rookie form for now.


	7. Dominus Temporis

Chapter 7: Dominus Temporis

###

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Also, special thanks to CrazyEight for beta'ing this.

###

"Wait, Old Clock Shop Man? What the heck?" Yuji asked, not believing what he just heard Tadashi mention. They were still in the classroom and the blond boy was getting his potential teammate up to speed. Really, he had no idea what Hypnos had planned for him.

"Yeah, really. I don't know who he is or where he came from. All we know about him, we learned from Mizuki," the blond responded.

"So, what's the point of this idiot?" the long-haired boy asked, disbelieving.

Tadashi shrugged. "He came out of nowhere. I looked him up and the only other person who saw him was some American named Marcos Diaz, who said the guy's shop ended up in his backyard somehow and his neighbors who confirmed that. Other than that, there were a few sightings, but nothing definitive."

###

A few weeks earlier, Miki passed out invitations to each of her classmates. She hoped they were all looking forward to her party as much as she was. She put them on each of their desks, smiling while she did so. Of course, she 'accidentally' skipped a couple of them, much to a certain blond's dismay.

"Hey, how come I didn't get an invite?" Tadashi asked, turning toward the dark-haired girl several desks after she skipped him over. The girl's smile went away and she turned around slowly. Why the fat kid wanted to go to _her _party, she didn't want to know. Then again, she had to maintain her status, and having him over to her house would detract from that.

"Oh, well, I don't know. Maybe because it's a girl's only party," she lied.

"Hey, I'm not a girl," a male classmate contradicted her in a masculine voice since he had received an invitation. Tadashi could have sworn he saw Miki's eye twitch.

"Okay, fine, you can come to my party," the dark-haired girl responded, not liking her decision but giving in anyway.

"So, what do you need me to bring?" the blond asked, excited to be going to an actual party. Of course, his parents would probably object to that, but he wasn't going to let that stop him.

"Well, it's a pool party," Jeri said after giggling for a split-second, causing Miki to writhe at the image of Tadashi in swim trunks. "So, just bring your bathing suit."

"Bring some soda too while you're at it," the dark-haired girl added before turning to her blonde friend. "So, Ayaka, are you doing anything after school?"

"I have English tutoring," the pig-tailed girl replied. "Maybe after that we can get together at my house."

"That would be awesome!" the dark-haired girl squealed.

###

Later on, at the end of their first week of lessons with their tutor, some American intern named Keith Jackson, Ayaka, Tadashi and Taizou received their progress reports. Their tutor had dark blond hair, blue eyes, a bit of a pointy nose and was wearing a pair of glasses. He was also wearing a blue suit which covered up his muscular build.

The American spoke in a somewhat deep voice, though he tried his best to not sound too critical. However, his Japanese wasn't exactly flawless, even though he tried his hardest. "Alright, so far so good. Some of you are definitely more advanced than the others, but don't worry about it. First off, Ayaka, you're doing great. You still need to work on memorizing your vocabulary and working on your pronunciation, especially your 'l's and 'r's as well as consonant clusters and your th's. Don't worry, though. Those are difficult sounds for most non-native speakers." He smiled. "Just keep on drilling those sounds as well as your vocabulary and you'll do great."

Ayaka bowed. "Thank you, Jackson-sensei!" she tried her best to say in English.

"Now for you, Taizou. Accent. That's your biggest flaw right now. Your vocabulary's pretty good. I can tell you've been using what you've learned in Elementary School pretty well. You accent, unfortunately, is all over the place. Don't worry, though, it'll come with time."

Taizou nodded. " I'll definitely improve," he assured his tutor.

Then Jackson turned towards Tadashi. "Now, as for you… How the heck do you speak English so good? I mean, I thought you forgot most of what you learned from Elementary School. Don't tell me you speak a language related to English."

Tadashi scratched the back of his head, embarrassed. "Before starting school, my mom stayed at home with me and my brother and spoke to us in German. She even taught us to read in it."

Taizou raised a bushy eyebrow. "What? You mean you're bilingual? How come you didn't tell me this?"

The blond boy sat there with his mouth agape, somewhat embarrassed by his outing. "Uh, you never asked. I think my mom speaks some English too, so she helped me with my homework in Elementary School."

"Well, that's kind of cool. Here I always figured you were half American or something," Ayaka commented.

"Yeah, no kidding," Taizou commented. "Did you ever go to Germany?"

"Yeah," Tadashi replied. "Every year or two my family goes over there to visit my grandparents."

"Das ist sehr gut," the tutor said, scratching his chin. _That is very good. _"Ich spreche ein bißchen Deutsch." _I speak a little German._

"Ja? Mein bruder spricht Deutsch auch." _Yeah? My brother also speaks German._

"Sehr schön," the man replied. "Well, that definitely explains your rapid advancement."

Taizou quashed any sense of jealousy. He tried his best to be happy for his friend.

###

"So, how come you never mentioned that to anyone?" the brown-haired boy asked Tadashi on their way down the elevator shaft of the Hypnos building with their digimon.

"Well, before moving to Shinjuku, I was picked on a lot at school for my mixed ancestry," the blond replied, his demeanor downcast. "I guess that ever since then I've tried my best to fit in."

"Dude, that's cool," Taizou responded. "Some people are just idiots and like to pick on others for no reason. Don't let it get to you, man."

Tadashi smiled at his best friend.

"What are you talking about?" Coronamon asked.

"Your partner's half German," Taizou told the lion, ecstatic to hear that. The digimon was a bit confused at that.

"Wait, does that mean he has to take a bath?" Coronamon inquired, not sure what to think about that since his partner forces him to plunge into the tub once a day.

Solarmon took the opportunity to correct him. "No, Coronamon, that means that one of his parents is from Germany."

"Oh! I knew that. Sounds like a dirty place, though," the lion added.

Once again, the gear took it upon himself to correct his friend. "On the contrary, it doesn't come from the English word for bacterium. It comes from the Latin word Germania, their name for the tribes that inhabited the area north of the Roman Empire."

"Wait, Solarmon, how do you know all that?" Taizou asked in awe.

"That's sooo cool!" Tadashi exclaimed at the digimon's knowledge.

The lion still had a few questions. "Okay, so how come the Roman Empire spoke Latin? Shouldn't they speak Romanian or something? Shouldn't it be called the Latin Empire?"

"No, Romanian is the name of a language spoken by one of the successor states," Solarmon explained. "The empire was named after its capitol which was a part of the Latin-speaking area of Italy, Latium."

"Wow, you could get your partner to help you with your homework," Tadashi joked to his best friend.

"Yeah… okay, how _do_ you know all that?" Taizou inquired, raising a bushy eyebrow. He hated having to ask it again.

"Well, I downloaded large amounts of information from the internet. Your world is quite intriguing," Solarmon replied.

It was then that they reached the bottom floor and that Tadashi realized he had forgotten something. "Oh yeah! Coronamon, we have to go upstairs." Taizou swore his blond friend's voice got higher-pitched whenever he got nervous.

"Uh, why?" the lion asked, actually knowing what he was about to hear and not liking it.

"We still have to see Commandramon," the blond responded.

"Again?"

"You guys go up to see Commandramon?" Taizou asked in confusion.

"Yeah. Want to come?" the blond offered.

"Certainly," Solarmon responded before his partner could object.

"Uh, I guess we can," Taizou said, giving in to his partner's request.

###

Deep inside Hypnos, Commandramon was sleeping while being fed data intravenously. Tadashi looked through the glass at the reptilian digimon, who was lying on a table with restraints over his chest and legs. Apparently the scientists that were there didn't want him to hurt them by accident. His helmet was also on the nearby table along with his gun.

"So, you think Yuji will join the team after he gets out of juvie?" Tadashi asked his brown-haired friend.

"You know, knowing him, he'll probably have a grudge on us for a while, so don't hold your breath," Taizou responded.

"At least until he decides that there's more money in the Taming business than in selling digimon to mad scientists," Solarmon suggested.

"They weren't all mad scientists. Just the dirtbag from Yokohama, who I hear actually called Hypnos to complain about that," Taizou corrected.

"So, ready to go?" Coronamon inquired of the group. "I'm bored."

"Sure," the blond responded before the group headed toward the elevator, not noticing that the blue dinosaur's arm twitched as they left.

###

The next day, Miki was just about ready for people to come over. She hoped that the turnout for her party was good and that people didn't simply avoid it. Her fears were unfounded though when she spotted the first of her guests: her friends Ayaka and Jeri. "Ayaka! It's good to see you!" she exclaimed, hugging the blonde girl who reciprocated.

"It's good to see you too. It's only been, what? Since yesterday?" the blonde said jokingly.

The three girls giggled at that. "It's good to see you too, Jeri!" the dark-haired girl said, hugging the brunette.

"So, what are we going to do?" Jeri asked after the hug was finished.

Miki replied wistfully. "Oh, maybe play some music. Dance a little. Hang out in the pool. That sort of thing. There will be some boys coming over too!"

"Are you sure your parents are alright with this?" Ayaka asked, doubting the whole thing as they walked into the mansion.

"Oh, they said I could have friends over. Don't worry, I'll make sure nothing bad happens," the dark-haired girl reassured her friends before walking over and turning on the radio. "Just relax. It'll be fun!"

"Okay, I hope so," the blonde said as they walked into Miki's living room. Actually, house isn't a good enough word. Mansion is more appropriate. In fact, just then, two boys were headed toward the mansion with drinks on hand and were amazed by the size of the thing.

"Whoa! This is huge!" Tadashi exclaimed. "I thought she lived in an apartment like the rest of us!"

"Yeah, no kidding. Can you imagine how much this must have cost her parents to buy?" Taizou asked.

"No way, man," Tadashi asked. "I don't even want to think about that."

###

Coronamon arrived at the meeting ground just in time to run into the other two digimon. "Good, you showed up!" the lion exclaimed.

"Well, you said five-o-clock," Salamon said.

"And it's two minutes till, so I think we're on time," Solarmon told the group, smiling at them.

"Well, anyway, I was wondering if you had any ideas about what to do now that the others are at their party or whatever," Coronamon explained to the group.

The orange gears spoke first. "To be honest, I have no idea. I'm sure we can figure out something." Then he thought of something. "I know, we can go visit Lopmon or Impmon."

"Did somebody say my name?" The trio of digimon looked up above to see a certain small devil holding a flame with his right index finger.

"Oh, speak of the devil!" Coronamon exclaimed.

"So, what brings you here?" Salamon inquired.

"Oh, I'm just here to see what you chumps are up to, that's all. I get bored easily hanging around a pair of five-year-olds," the imp explained before dissipating his flame. Apparently he had plans for some sort of prank but he didn't follow up on them. "So, where the heck are your Tamers anyway?"

"They're at something called a party," Coronamon blurted out. "I don't know what that is, but I sure want to find out!"

Impmon grinned at that one. "A party, eh? Sounds like we should go crash it! You know what they say, every party needs its pooper!"

"Um, are you sure this is proper?" Solarmon asked the others.

"Are you kidding? I love parties!" Impmon exclaimed. "Come on, parties run on sponan… spanon…"

"Spontaneity?" Solarmon asked, his expression turning to one of annoyance.

"Yeah, that!"

"Okay, I just hope that my partner doesn't get mad," Salamon said, expressing her misgivings.

"Oh, just relax. It'll be fun!" Coronamon exclaimed. "Wait, does anybody know where this Miki girl lives?" In response he got several shaking heads. "That's not good. Now what are we going to do?"

###

Miki ran up to her room and shut the door, gritting her teeth. So far, only a few of her guests have arrived, including Fatboy and Bushy Brows. And they had the nerve to bring Dr. Thunder instead of Dr. Pepper!

She just needed to get away from them for a couple minutes. Unfortunately, as she turned around after shutting her door, she saw an old man on her bed.

"Ah! What are you doing in my house?!" she shouted.

"Oh, everybody needs to do a little trespassing once in a while. Don't worry, girly, I have just the thing for you."

"Yeah, right! Get out before I call the cops. On the other hand, that would get my parents' attention. Hmm…" The girl stood there for a second.

"You're not too bright, are ya?" the old man asked. "If I were you, I would call the cops immediately at the sight of someone my age in your room."

"So, just who the heck are you anyway?" The girl asked warily.

"Just a simple old clock-shop owner, that's all," the man said with a grin. "By the way, I have something you'd like."

"My parents told me not to accept gifts from strangers," the dark-haired girl told him.

"I'm sure they also said to scream whenever you find yourself alone in the room with an old man. To tell you the truth, this _is _a bit creepy so I'll make this quick." The old clock-shop man grabbed something large and round from behind him on the bed. "Here you go!"

Miki's eyes got large as soon as she saw it and her smile big. "It's so cute!"

"That, my girl is Syakomon," the old man said. "Now, I'll have to go. See you around, young lady, and attack if ever an old man shows up in your room again!"

Then the man disappeared. Now it was just her and the purple mollusk, Syakomon.

###

Downstairs, one of the party guests decided to comment on something he noticed. "Nice bottom." Taizou's remark surprised Tadashi, who didn't expect such a thing to come out of the mouth of his usually straight-laced friend.

"What?" the blond asked incredulously.

Taizou smiled before making a deadpan comment. "Look at that girl's figure! It's a pretty nice one. Not to mention, she's a red-head. And red-heads are hot."

"You know, I've never understood why guys like us would find girls' butts attractive," Tadashi remarked, still confused.

"Okay, it's not the butt itself, but the figure, the hips and how they work with the rest of the body... You know, I should go talk to her. It's not often we see a red-head that's not Rika around here." Taizou started to walk toward the girl before turning around to face the confused blond. "Oh, and don't worry, you have a nice bottom too."

Tadashi rolled his eyes at his friend's joke. "I'm glad I know."

"I'm only kidding," the brown-haired boy said, cracking a smile before walking over to the girl and talking to her. "Hi, my name's Taizou. What's yours?" he asked with a smile.

The girl looked at him with a grin of her own. "Mizuki."

"So, how are you liking the party?" the bushy-browed teen inquired, hoping the party guest was happy.

"Well, I've been to better, but it's alright," she replied.

"So, I take it you're not from around here?" Taizou asked, curious. The girl shook her head.

"Nope. Just visiting. I'm a ways away from home," she replied.

"So, where do you live?" he asked.

"Koto, more or less," she responded, smiling.

"Ah, Koto. So, how do you know Miki?" the guy inquired, getting a confused look from the girl.

"Miki? Who's Miki?" The two boys didn't know what to think of that one, so Taizou just looked at a confused Tadashi and then back at Mizuki.

"Wait, so you don't know who's holding this party?" the brown-haired boy asked.

"Nope, I just saw a party going on so I decided to crash it, that's all," she said, chuckling.

Tadashi decided it was time to pull his friend over and he tried whispering something in his ear. Unfortunately for them, a group of jocks decided to turn up the music to unbearable levels, causing the duo to run outside along with the red-head. There they saw the numerous party guests swimming and playing some volleyball game in the pool. The duo had to wonder how the heck Miki's parents had so much land in the middle of the city.

"That's better. So, what _are _you doing here so far away from Koto, Mizuki?" Taizou asked the girl.

"Oh, just hanging out. I thought I'd see what there was to do," the girl said with a mischievous smile.

Tadashi decided to finally pull his friend to the side. "So, are you going to tell Miki?" Tadashi asked Taizou in a whisper, not exactly trusting the girl.

"Well, I guess I should, but why? It's not like she's hurting anybody," Taizou replied, obviously enamored by the girl.

"Come on, you got on Yuji's case for selling digimon to the highest bidder," the blond retorted.

"Yeah, but she's not exactly doing anything illegal here. The only thing wrong is that Miki didn't invite her." The duo then looked at the girl, who took off her clothes, revealing the green bikini underneath. Tadashi looked to the side just as his friend fainted, falling backward.

"Oh, everybody just had to start puberty without me, huh?" Tadashi complained, rolling his eyes at his friend's drooling face.

###

Miki came downstairs and decided to turn down the radio, grumbling under her breath as she did so. She was about to try and find whoever decided to turn the stereo up to unbearable levels to yell at them when she saw Ayaka and Jeri walk into the room. Both were wearing swimsuits. Ayaka's was a red bikini while Jeri's was an orange one-piece.

"Oh, hey, Miki! We were just looking for you," Jeri told the dark-haired girl, whose visage went from visibly angry to smiling at the sight of her friends.

"Thanks. I was just doing something upstairs, that's all," the dark-haired girl told her two friends. "So, anything going on?" _Other than some idiots upping the volume on the radio to unbearable levels._

"Not much," Ayaka responded. "Half the school is here and then some."

"Yeah, I think some people invited some of their friends along," Jeri stated. "There's this red-head that I don't recognize."

"Red-head? That's not Rika?" Miki asked, confused. "Now this I've got to see."

It was just then that Tadashi ran out of the bathroom wearing his red swim-trunks. Miki found the sight profoundly disturbing, since she couldn't handle the sight of anyone that's even remotely overweight without a shirt on. "Tadashi, what are you doing?"

The blond stopped to look at Miki. "Oh, hey, Miki, Jeri and Ayaka. There's this girl here that doesn't know you and Taizou's all… all… You come and see!"

"Wait, what is she doing to him?" Jeri asked, worried for her friend.

"Let's go see," Ayaka went along with them. To their utter lack of surprise, Taizou and the mysterious girl were having a rather normal conversation in the pool.

"Really? Your friend did that?" Mizuki asked, surprised. "What a jerk."

"No kidding. It turned out that one of the guys he was selling digimon to was a mad scientist," the brown-haired boy responded before noticing Tadashi and the three girls standing on dry land above them. "Oh, hi guys, this is Mizuki."

"Hi, sweet party you're having," the red-head told the quartet. "Which one of you is Miki?"

"That would be me," the dark-haired girl said, raising her hand.

"Nice to meet you," Mizuki said smoothly, smiling at the girl. "Sorry I crashed your party. It's pretty fun, though. Definitely a nice change of pace. Taizou was talking about how you guys are all Digimon Tamers."

"What? You're talking to her about that?" Tadashi asked, suspicious of the girl and surprised that his friend would reveal that so quickly.

"Yeah, Tadashi, Taizou and I are Tamers," Ayaka told them.

"Don't forget me," Miki added, smiling. The group looked at her in shock.

"Wait, you're a Tamer? When did this happen?" the brown-haired boy inquired, not liking that she hadn't revealed that she was one yet.

"Oh, that happened this afternoon. She's upstairs. You want to meet her?" Miki offered bubbly.

"Great! This means we now have five Tamers that can go to the digital world!" Tadashi exclaimed, excited to have another teammate.

The group went upstairs, leaving the other party guests behind.

Meanwhile, the sun was getting lower outside as well. While the group was in Miki's room, some boys entered into the house through the front door, carrying several large metallic kegs. "Hey, guys, we have beer!" The other party guests cheered as the party got a little crazier.

###

The group entered into Miki's room. "She should be somewhere around here somewhere," the dark-haired girl commented. "Syakomon, where are you?"

Briefly, from behind the closet door, the team spotted a small, purple mollusk that quickly went back behind the door. "Syakomon, don't worry, they're friends!" Miki exclaimed, running over to the door and picking up her partner.

"That's your partner, huh?" Ayaka inquired as the shell opened up.

"Wow, she's pretty cute," Jeri commented.

"You really think so?" the mollusk asked, finally smiling.

"Yeah, definitely," Ayaka remarked.

"You're the cutest digimon I've ever met," Miki told her partner. _Other than MarineAngemon, of course._

The two boys smiled at that. "So, what colored digivice do you have?" Tadashi asked curiously.

"Oh, I don't have one yet. I'm sure I'll get one soon, though. Does Hypnos hand them out?" Miki inquired.

"No, they form automatically," Taizou remarked.

"Really? I got mine from an old man," Mizuki told the group, causing them to gasp.

"Wait, you're a Tamer?" Tadashi asked, aghast. Miki instantly thought about the old man who gave her partner to her.

"Actually, I'm what you call a Digimon Hunter. Oh, yeah, I'll show you guys my digivice. Let me go get it," the red-head told the group before rushing downstairs.

"I'll go with her," Taizou said, rushing after her with a grin on his face.

"That's interesting," Tadashi remarked. "So, maybe that means we'll have six of us go to the digital world, if Yuji decides to come with us of course." The boy was greeted with silence and he looked around. His team was all frozen. _Okay, this is weird._

His fears were increased when he spotted someone that wasn't there before. An old man was leaning against the wall, smiling a toothy grin.

The Clock Shop Man moved toward Tadashi, who was unsure of what to do. Everything and everyone around him was frozen in time. _Okay, if that's the case, then how can I still breathe? _the chubby boy asked himself. Then again, maybe instead of time being frozen, just the others were frozen.

Of course, he immediately pushed that thought aside when the old man in front of him grinned. "Well, hello there, Tadashi. Long time no see," the man said, almost jokingly.

"What? We never met!" the blond objected. "What did you do to my friends?"

"Don't worry about them. Actually, they're just fine. I just need to talk to you about something," the old man stated nonchalantly

Tadashi didn't buy it. "What do you want to talk about, you creepy old man?" The boy looked at the old man's digivice on his waist, a model that he had never seen before. "How do you even have a partner anyway?"

"Would you believe I'm one of the first Tamers?" the man asked, grinning. "A friend of mine beat me to the punch, though, but I got my partner a few years after from Yggdrasil. No, the rumors about me being the reincarnated Bagramon are completely unfounded."

"What?" Tadashi asked, confused and scared.

"Like I say, it's a long story." The man chuckled before his demeanor went from comical to serious. "Well, anyway, now for what I'm here for. Tadashi, I've seen what you become in the future. It isn't pretty."

"What? What do you mean?" the blond asked, not believing the man.

"Well, Tadashi, here's the thing: you have a dark side. We all do. Except yours gets stronger, so strong that a member of the triumvirate takes advantage of you. The trigger is that you'll find the other Tamers and you'll be disappointed."

Tadashi looked at the man in shock. "Wait, you mean they'll be dead?"

The old man shook his head. "No, no, they're alive. They'll be alive. It's just that they won't need saving. They were taken away from here for a reason."

"I don't believe you. And you know what? I don't have a stupid dark side either!" the blond exclaimed. "Now, release my friends. Heck, if you know where the others are at, why don't you take me there?"

"I never said I knew where they were," the old man said, his voice quiet, "And although I did enlist Takato and the others' help to fight against the evil digimon Quartzmon, this wasn't me. You'll find the others, though. When you're ready to go, look for me."

"Why don't you take me now?" Tadashi asked, angry.

"There's that Dark Side now. Watch how it flares up. That hatred of all adults who happen to be Tamers." The old man took a device from his pocket and moved at a lightning quick pace, pressing the device against the boy's forehead.

###

_The first image was that of a woman, maybe even a girl of European extraction. Her outfit was revealing, her black make-up heavy and her face pale. She had long black hair and she felt Tadashi's face with the back of her hand, her tone suggestive, her accent French. "Well, if it isn't my favorite." _

_###_

_ The second image involved Tadashi facing a black-haired boy of European decent, also on the heavy side, though he was a bit bigger than the blond. The boy held a black digivice with a golden ring around the center screen and his partner, an unknown, raccoon-like Ultimate level with heavy armor and a pair of wings on his back was there, hovering behind him. He also had a digital hazard symbol on his chest armor._

_ Tadashi was in front of him, holding his own digivice. Coronamon was at his side. "Biomerge Activate!"_

_ "Coronamon biomerge to… Apollomon!"_

_ The lion-like member of the Olympus Twelve faced his opponent. Unfortunately, his color scheme was wrong and he had a blue hue instead of a red one._

_ "Don't do this, Tadashi!" the boy yelled in American English._

"I must do this, for all the crimes you have committed!" _Tadashi yelled from inside his sphere._

_ The other boy held out his digivice. "Upgrade Program Activate! You think you can do this?" he asked his partner._

_ "Gladly!"_

_###_

_ Now he was facing another pair of opponents. "Now, Apollomon, I have to exact judgement against you," the first figure, an androgynous being with long hair hovering with its legs crossed. It had a golden mask and floating around it were numerous golden orbs._

_ The other figure was a blue knight with a long, yellow blade being emitted from his right wrist. Apollomon attempted to attack the knight, but his attacks were thwarted by the godlike digimon._

_ Then the knight struck Apollomon in the chest._

_###_

Tadashi jolted awake. He was surrounded by his friends, who were concerned for his well-being.

"Tadashi, what happened?" Miki asked, obviously worrying for him.

"One moment you were standing and the next you were on the ground," Ayaka indicated.

"That stupid clock guy decided to visit me. He told me that I'm going to turn evil or something and that I have to fight my dark side, whatever that is," the blond explained, getting up. "Man, my head hurts."

"Take it easy," Ayaka ordered, lifting the chubby boy up.

"I had these visions. First, I was talking to this woman!" the blond boy exclaimed. "She was beautiful, but she was evil. She called me her favorite. Then I was fighting this American guy with a raccoon."

"Was the guy white or black?" Miki asked.

"White, why?"

"Oh, I just wanted to know what he looked like. I was hoping for black. That would be _so _exotic," the girl squealed.

Tadashi rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I was fighting that guy, then it changed scenes again, so I was fighting the flipping Buddha or something along with a blue knight with a yellow sword."

"That sounds kind of familiar," Jeri said, wondering who it could have been.

"Eh, he probably just had some weird dream or something," Miki stated abruptly, not believing anything the boy mentioned.

"She's right," the brunette agreed. "Just because you have a dream about something doesn't mean that it will actually happen."

Ayaka and Miki both agreed.

"But… but it was so real!" Tadashi exclaimed to the group.

"It might be true." The group looked toward the door to see Mizuki. "The old man you're talking about, did he have circular red glasses, a visor and a cane?"

"Yeah, all of that!" Tadashi exclaimed. "How do you know?"

"I've been traveling with the man you're talking about," the red-head indicated.

"Wait, you've been traveling with an old man?" Miki asked, somewhat weirded out.

"Well, there was this cute guy with us, but he left awhile back. Still, if you got some sort of warning from the guy, you should listen to it," Mizuki admonished the group.

"Even if it's stupid?" Tadashi asked.

"It isn't stupid. He knows what's happening in the world, believe me," Mizuki warned.

"Wait, so you… where _are _you from?" Taizou asked, really confused right now.

The girl pulled out her digivice. "I'm from another world, actually. It was getting too dangerous for people with digimon so, when I got the invitation to travel with the Watchmaker, I accepted. He helped us defeat a digimon named Quartzmon, after all."

"So, how long have you been traveling with this guy?" Ayaka inquired.

"For a few months, I guess. I've kind of lost track of time," the girl replied. "Oh, and by the way, Miki, you better go downstairs. Most of your guests are plastered on the ground."

The dark haired girl was confused at that one so she ran downstairs. Sure enough, most of the kids she invited were lying around drunk and there was a keg in the middle of the living room. "What the heck? Okay, who was the idiot that brought the beer?" the girl asked no one in particular, feeling a massive loathing.

###

A few hours later, the red-head made it back to the Watchmaker's shop. "So, how'd the party go, hmmm?" the old man asked as she walked in, a massive grin on his face.

"It was a _lot _of fun," the girl replied. "Well, at least until we had to get rid of all the drunk kids since someone decided to bring alcohol."

"Ah, reminds me of my college days," the old man said before laughing. "Still, they're still in middle school, so they're a bit young for that. So, ready to go forward to our next destination?"

"Where is that?" the girl inquired.

"Oh, we'll be moving forward another two months. This time we'll be taking the others to the digital world," the old man remarked, smiling again.

"Well, I look forward to seeing the others again," she said, ready to move forward as the Watchmaker started to mess with the machinery that would send them through time and into the future.

###

**One Month Later…**

Yuji sat there, rolling his eyes. "That's just ridiculous. So there's some old man that travels through time like he's the flipping Doctor or something and he gave you some vision? Yeah, right," the long-haired boy responded in disbelief.

Tadashi was confused. "The Doctor didn't time-travel. He was a hologram on a starship. Okay, maybe he did travel through time a couple times."

"Wrong Doctor," the long-haired boy corrected. "You're thinking of the one from Star Track Voyeur or whatever."

"You know, I'm surprised you even know what Doctor Who is," they heard a voice from behind them say. Yuji turned to see the one person he really didn't want to see. That traitor, Taizou…

"What the heck are you doing here, huh?" the long-haired boy yelled.

"I'm glad to see you too," the buzz-haired boy replied, grinning.

"So, does this mean we're friends again?" Tadashi asked the long-haired boy, ever optimistic.

Yuji shook his head. "Nope! I'll join your team, but there's no way we'll be hanging out after what happened. Not a chance."

"The feeling's mutual," Taizou told the other boy, not really buying it. In reality, he knew they'd pull through, eventually. It was just going to take time.

###

A/N: What do you know? There's the end of the first arc. This is when everything starts to get interesting, actually. Hehe.


	8. The Runaway

Chapter 8: The Runaway.

###

Disclaimer: I don't own digimon.

Special thanks to CrazyEight for going over this chapter.

###

He laid wide awake, waiting until, as far as he knew, everyone else was asleep before he got up. He was going to try his plan out, tying the bed sheets as hard as he could and making a long rope. He also gathered some of his things, putting on a black t-shirt and somewhat baggy beige cargo pants. Then he clipped his digivice to his belt, a black model with a golden ring etched with digicode and hung his computer bag around his shoulder.

He dropped the rope out of the third-story window and slid down, hoping that nobody would notice that he left before he reached an embassy. He had no idea where he was in the town he was in and he certainly didn't speak the language. He ran down the streets, hoping that nobody noticed him. Nobody did, in fact. To everyone walking around that old European town, he was just another bystander.

He reached the park in record time, walking down a path and hoping his partner was somewhere around there. "Hey, buddy, you there?" he called out, hoping to get the small digimon's attention. After some ruffling in the bushes, the small mammal appeared. He was a brown, raccoon-like digimon.

"Finally! I get to see you in person!" the digimon exclaimed, latching onto his partner's back and getting on his shoulder.

The teen smiled. "Yeah, no kidding. Sorry about that. So, ready to get out of here, Prokyomon?" he asked the digimon, glad to have finally escaped.

"You bet."

###

The two continued on, chatting. The human told his partner a bit more about where they were headed and the digimon. The human kept on trying to find someone that spoke English, but couldn't. He found it strange that his mother thought it a good idea to take him here of all places. Maybe she felt that he wouldn't be able to escape if they went to a country where he didn't speak the language.

It was a couple hours after meeting up with his partner that he finally found a familiar landmark. He was amazed he hadn't spotted the iconic building before. At least from the sight of the Eiffel Tower he could now guess where in France he was.

It was about that time that his stomach started to rumble. He really needed to find something to eat. He checked his digivice, hoping to find some sort of soup kitchen or something since he didn't have a dime on him, but instead, he found several signals. _Other Tamers, _he thought. He doubted that any of them would take him in, but it was an idea. He also noticed an unusual, green signal.

Checking the signal key on his digivice, he found out that it was a portal.

_That would be an interesting idea, _he thought, sitting on the steps and watching the sun rise. _But, I would rather get home to dad._

He thought about the man who he had only met a few months before. He felt it was strange that his mother hated him so much, go as far as claiming that he had some sort of Stockholm Syndrome, even though that was furthest from the truth.

His thoughts were interrupted by a nearby crash. Instinctively, he got up, holding his digivice to face whatever it was that had appeared. From the debris came a blue, cocoon-like digimon with numerous knives attached to the various tentacles on its body.

"Chrysalimon, Champion Level, Virus Attribute," the teen read from his digivice. "That's… Gunther's partner."

Another crash was heard, this time from another, far larger digimon: a grey raccoon that the teen instantly recognized. "Mapachemon?" The teen really didn't know how _that _digimon of all things came into existence or who had him as a partner, but the sight of the large, grey raccoon made him run in the opposite direction.

"What are we doing?" Prokyomon asked his partner as the two ran as quickly as possible through the Paris streets. Seeing all the architecture made the teen want to stay behind a little longer, but he knew there was no way that was going to happen and that the digimon behind him were going to be duking it out.

"We're getting away, buddy!" he exclaimed, unclipping his digivice and looking at the map on it. He ran toward the green dot, ready to head into the digital world in case Gunther's partner lost.

"Those digimon are headed after us!" Prokyomon exclaimed. The brown, data-type raccoon was feeling just as anxious as his partner but felt that he should be fighting these two digimon to defend him.

The runaway just looked behind at the two digimon, and they really were gaining on him, so he made his way through the narrow alleys, running through the neighborhoods to look for his destination. He finally found a large ditch and headed into it. Looking at the map, he saw that the portal was just ahead.

"Okay, Prokyomon, we're going to have to seal this up," the teen said. "Activate WarGreymon's Terra Force!" he yelled, sliding the card, which his kidnappers hadn't found surprisingly. Prokyomon unleashed an energy blast from his mouth, sealing the two of them in.

"What now?" the digimon asked as the two ran down the tunnels, some of them lined with skulls. Of course, they just had to be going through Paris's giant catacombs. For all he knew, the runaway was probably running through somebody's remains.

Then he stopped, glancing at the portal's lights before giving his partner an answer. "That's what." Then the two of them ran head-first into the digital world.

###

A series of attacks, a fireball, a knife, a blast of ink, a sword and a missile, hit the enemy digimon, a Tekkamon, causing it to be deleted almost instantly. As the enemy digimon data flew off into the air, the team that had deleted it relaxed for a few seconds before one of them cheered. "We did it! And we didn't even need Antylamon or Beelzemon to do it!" Tadashi cheered. He looked at the rest of the team, who didn't seem too impressed.

"Yeah, but we still can't beat an Ultimate one on one," Taizou said, deadbeat. "You know, I've been trying to generate a blue-card, but I haven't gotten it to work. I've even looked online for suggestions."

"Yeah, for some reason I think that the guy's upgrade to the digivice totally screwed that one up," Yuji complained. "Still, at least we defeated this guy, thanks to Commandramon's Scouter Monoeye. So, yes, thank me for all that."

"Um, the Scouter Monoeye didn't find a weak point this time," Ayaka contradicted him.

"Yeah, the combined force of all our attacks totally did all the work," Miki agreed.

Tadashi was somewhat irritated that his point didn't get across, though he did agree that that adult's upgrade may have screwed things up a bit. Then again, they hadn't gotten any sort of update from him since shortly after Yuji got out of jail. According to the man's website, which only Taizou bothered looking at, it was due to 'family issues', whatever that meant.

It was just then that Taizou received a phone call. He pulled out his cell and answered it. "Hello… Oh, hey, Yamaki, how's it going? You want us at Hypnos? Okay, we'll be there immediately. Bye." The buzz-haired boy looked at all the others with an uneasy smile. "So, you guys coming to Hypnos?"

"Sure! I wonder what that's about," Tadashi replied.

"Maybe Yamaki's going to give us a raise," Yuji suggested.

"Yeah, right," Taizou said, not buying it in the least.

"Maybe since we've finally beaten an Ultimate, they'll actually send us to the digital world," Tadashi suggested, the blond grinning widely.

"I hope not," Miki said, before saying something totally off the wall. "I have a hair appointment tomorrow."

"Wait, so you'd deny the chance to save our friends for a stupid hair appointment?" Tadashi asked, flabbergasted.

Ayaka had a different idea. "Um, I hate to break it to you, but the digital world is extremely dangerous. We'll most likely have to get our parents' permission."

Tadashi's eye twitched at that one. He did not want adults interfering with their adventures. It was bad enough that they had Hypnos around and that they had told his parents.

Still, he headed straight there, hoping to go to the digital world sooner as opposed to later. After all, it had been two months since the others went missing and there still wasn't a plan to go to the digital world to get them back.

###

Shibumi looked in awe at the latest readings his probes had sent him. He had no idea that such a place existed in the digital world. The latest findings included ruins from where the D-Reaper once was, no life signs detected.

At least until he found some bizarre readings matching that of a Mega Level digimon. _So something had survived the D-Reaper's assault on the planetary digital world? _He thought, just before his thoughts were interrupted by Yamaki.

"Mizuno, I need you in the conference room for a meeting," the blond man said.

The red-haired man turned toward his superior. "I may have discovered something living in the region of the digital world that the D-Reaper once occupied and I feel a need to investigate it, but it can wait. Still, it might be something that Antonio's squad will have to deal with when the time comes."

"Please do," Yamaki remarked as Shibumi got up and they walked toward the meeting room.

"Are you afraid of what the newer team might think of this news?" the man asked his friend.

"More or less," the blond responded, "Though they'll get over it. Something like this was bound to happen eventually."

###

A few minutes later, they were in the conference room, and so were five of the eight Tamers of Shinjuku left in the human world. "I'm sure you're wondering why I decided to have you over for this meeting," Yamaki started to say, looking on the expecting faces of each of them and knowing that they were going to have to face the facts. "Well, I'll start out. Sometime yesterday, a second digivice signal was discovered in the digital world."

"Wait, you mean there was somebody in the digital world already?" Tadashi asked in sheer surprise.

"Yes, and he has been there since shortly after the D-Reaper invasion. When he was detected, I had Ryo investigate him since he had to go there for Cyberdramon to cool off anyway, and the other Tamer turned out to be a Japanese teenager who called himself Crimson. What he is still doing there, I don't know. Now, for this second signal, the other organizations from the Latin Americans, The United States, as well as the European and African Unions detected it before we did. And, in a punch, a consultant for the Latin American Confederation's organization Saxum announced to everyone else that he was going to put together a team with representatives from various countries around the world."

"So, does that mean that we'll get to go?" Tadashi asked, getting excited.

"No," the Hypnos director responded simply, taking the entire team aback. "Antonio Guevara, the man in charge of this expedition, who also conveniently gave you your digivice upgrades, decided to recruit a number of college students who happen to be Tamers that can reach the Ultimate level. He said that the group would be 18+ only."

"What! He can't do that! We're the ones who are supposed to go to the digital world to save the others!" Tadashi exclaimed angrily.

"Tadashi, calm down," Taizou reprimanded him.

"Okay, here's the thing. They're adults! Adults can't go to the digital world!" Tadashi claimed, still angry that they were ignored.

"There is no evidence that they can't," Yamaki objected. "And sending you to the digital world would have the unfortunate implications of making you child soldiers. We can't have that, especially since you haven't reached the Ultimate level on your own."

"You know, he's right," Ayaka said.

Yuji disagreed. "What? How can you say such a thing? The heroes of the TV Show were kids."

"The TV Show is a piece of fiction," Yamaki objected. "Also, as an added part of their mission, Team Guevara is going to search for our missing Tamers in the area beyond the sovereign's layer."

"What! That was our job!" Tadashi exclaimed, even angrier at the whole thing.

"You were given two months to reach the Ultimate level, Tadashi. Now, I was letting you know because that way you didn't have to deal with the stress of having the salvation of the original team of Tamers on your shoulders. This meeting is adjourned." Yamaki promptly got up, irritated that the blond boy would not see that there were very good reasons.

Tadashi wouldn't take no for an answer, though. "Shibumi, when will Team Guevara head to the digital world?" he asked.

"In about a week, why?" the man asked.

"Just curious." The blond turned away and walked out, seemingly defeated. "I'm going home."

###

When he got home, Taizou decided to investigate the situation by contacting Guevara himself via webcam. It was surprisingly easy.

"A friend of mine wants to know your reasons for not having us along with you on your trip to the digital world. Care to elaborate?"the bushy-browed boy asked him through his instant-messaging client. He got a response after just a few seconds of waiting.

_"Yeah. Sorry, but I have some really good reasons for that. I was hoping to have the original Japanese team along, but they're currently missing, so that's not going to happen. Also, you're all minors, something that I was somewhat willing to overlook with Takato and the others, due to them having more experience than me. A lot more." _Taizou read through that quickly, formulating a response.

"I actually agree with that," he said, surprisingly. "Any other reasons?"

_ "The level situation. No one on your team can reach Ultimate yet. Plus, there's the experience part of the whole thing: your team has only been tamers since about two months ago," _the man tried to explain as civilly as possible.

"Gotcha. All very good reasons," the brown-haired boy responded, smiling slightly.

_ "Glad you understand."_

"What about your son? What's he going to be doing while you're gone?" Taizou inquired.

He waited for a couple seconds. _Strange… he's usually really quick about answering,_ the teen thought, sitting back in his chair. A few seconds later, he finally got a response from the older gentleman.

_"I'd rather not talk about that." _Taizou was a bit weirded out by that response. _Maybe he lost custody or something. I know he's divorced._

"Alright, then," the brown-haired boy said. "Thanks for your time. I know you're pretty busy so I won't keep you."

Guevara nodded. _"No problem,"_ the man responded. _"I'll still be here for the next week. By the way, your Bestiary program works great."_

"Thanks. See you later." After a brief exchange of valedictions, the two logged off.

Truth be told, Taizou was actually a bit envious of the son. At least he had a relationship with his father, unlike the brown-haired Japanese boy. And from what he knew about Antonio, the man was more than willing to spend time with him unlike Taizou's own father.

He hated that.

Hopefully whatever custody problems would be solved quickly.

###

In the digital world, the Runaway made his way across the vast deserts on the surface. He was reminded of home in Vegas for some reason, something that caused him to smile with nostalgia.

The boy glanced at his digivice for the first time in over an hour. _No signals… good. _

He kept on walking. "So, what do you think, buddy?" he asked his partner.

"Lots of sand. I don't like it much," the brown-furred raccoon replied. "So, you think we're gonna make it back to the real world?"

"Yeah, I hope so soon," he replied, wiping the sweat from his black hair. For some reason, despite several hours of walking, he wasn't really tired or hungry. "I wonder how my friends are doing back home."

"Yeah? Who are they?" Prokyomon inquired, curious.

The Tamer smiled. "Well, there's Gus, who's this blond guy. He's this wannabe musician who's really into his music. Then there's Mario. Those guys are the two I hang out with the most."

"Wow, that's cool!"

"Then there's my friend Matthias. I just call him Matt. He's one of my closest buddies from growing up," the black-haired teen said. "I haven't seen him in a while. I was hoping to go visit him, but I haven't had the chance to yet. All that school."

The raccoon was silent for a couple minutes. "So, what's going on with school?"

"Not much. Just had to do a bunch of school work," the boy responded. "I'm trying to get ready so that I can start going to public school in the fall. My dad didn't want me not learning anything for six months so I've been slaving away." He chuckled at that one.

After a few more minutes of silence, the raccoon spoke again. "So, what _are_ we doing?"  
The boy's face gave off a look of determination. "Looking for some sort of settlement. You know, ever since I got here, this place has been incredibly barren. I want to find a way to the real world, but I'm not sure if there is one. Maybe one of those pink beams of energy can do something… Hmm…" He scratched his chin and then rejected the thought. "On the other hand, those might kill me, so that's a bad idea."

He pulled out his black and gold digivice again to check for more signals. There still wasn't anything.

_Good, _he thought, glad that whoever had the Mapachemon wasn't chasing him. The thought that someone had stolen a digimon _he _had designed irked him to no end. And to make matters worse, he had no idea who could have done it.

###

The day after the disturbing announcement that Tadashi and the others wouldn't be going to the digital world, the blond was searching the city frantically for either a portal to the digital world or the Watchmaker, since the old man said that he would bring the boy and his friends to the digital world when he needed to go.

The boy figured that this would be his chance.

He continued walking along the road where he first met Coronamon, his footsteps hitting the sidewalk. That was when he noticed the shop in the very alleyway where he met his partner.

_That wasn't there before, _he thought to himself, deciding to investigate it. He saw that the sign said closed, but he touched the door handle anyway, opening it to find out that the building inside was far bigger than it was on the outside.

"Didn't you see the sign? It said we're closed, so go away!" Tadashi looked in front of him to see the old man working under the large device in the center with Clockmon handing him tools. The room was large and dark, with numerous clocks of various types on the yellow walls with a few doors leading away from the room.

"You said you'd take me to the digital world when I was ready," the blond said simply. The old man froze and then slid out from under the large machine, a massive grin on his face and his giant clock of a partner backed off.

"Well, what do you know? It's about time you came!" the old man exclaimed, getting up and wiping the sweat off his brow. "You know how long I've been waiting? Forty-eight hours!"

Tadashi gave a confused expression. "Uh, sorry, I didn't know."

"And here I was expecting you to be looking for me during your free time all the time," the Watchmaker stated before laughing a bit. "I guess you have a little sense after all."

The blond narrowed his eyes. "You know, I still don't believe you that I'm going to turn evil."

"You might not. I got that whole vision from an AncientWisemon, so it might not be true. Time is always flowing, after all," the old man said. "So, what made you decide to seek me out?"

While Tadashi spoke, the old man headed toward a nearby computer and started typing in information. "Okay, this guy from overseas, I don't know where, his name is Antonio Guevara and he's leading a team to go to the digital world without us."

"Chile, he's from Chile," the Watchmaker let him know.

"Oh, okay, that's in South America, right?" the blond asked.

"Right," the old man confirmed.

"Anyway, he's going to the digital world with his own team," the boy repeated.

"Yeah, and they'll fall into a trap as soon as they arrive," the Watchmaker stated nonchalantly, much to Tadashi's surprise.

"What?"

"It's simple, actually," the old man explained. "The majority of portals from our world into the digital world make everyone land in the same spot: the center area of the surface level of the Orbital Digital World. When Tony and his team finally go to the digital world, the spot where they land will have a large number of rogue and renegade Tamers. They'll be outnumbered and won't stand a chance."

The blond was disturbed by the explanation. "No way. Why don't they go there sooner?" he inquired.

The old man gave him a stern look while gesturing for Clockmon to go into the back. "It's because of the government agencies in charge preferring to muck up the whole mission. Believe me; Guevara intended to go as soon as he could, however…"

"They made him wait a week," Tadashi finished.

"Exactly," the Watchmaker confirmed while nodding.

"So, that's why you need us to go, even though we're kids," the blond boy guessed.

"That's part of the reason. Another reason is that you'll benefit from the journey," the old man explained. "You see, children are more malleable while adults tend to be set in their ways. This allows them to develop more as people."

Tadashi nodded, not thinking of how sinister that could be. "I get it."

"Good. Now, did anybody ever tell you about the crest programs?" the old man asked.

"Crest programs?" the blond asked, confused.

"Yes, crest programs. You see, in the file on your digivice that carries your information, there's a line that indicates your dominant crest trait. Now, I won't tell you what it is, but I'll tell you that due to a glitch in the digivice upgrade, you'll have to use the crest program to reach the Ultimate level instead of a blue card."

Tadashi gasped. "No way. You mean that's why I wasn't able to digivolve my partner further?"

The old man nodded. "Exactly. Antonio Guevara intended the crest programs to be an optional method of reaching that level for Tamers without cards. Unfortunately, things didn't work out that way. Thankfully some have accidently reached that level on their own, such as Günter Kaufmann, for instance."

"Who the heck is that?" the blond asked in confusion.

"You'll find out soon enough," the Watchmaker said with a toothy grin.

"Oookay. So, when can we leave?" the blond inquired.

"Go get your friends. Don't worry; you won't need to tell your parents. They won't even know you're gone, anyway," the old man told the boy.

"What? You can do that?" he asked, surprised.

"Uh, yeah. Since the enemy will be reaching the digital world about now, I'm going to be sending you to the digital world yesterday. At the same time, there will be a version of you still in this world so it'll be as if you never left." The old man chuckled. "Ah, time-travel paradoxes. Gotta love them."

Tadashi was really confused about that. "Uh, okay… I guess. I'll go get the others."

The old man smiled as the blond boy ran off. It was nice to see someone with such youthful vigor. How he wished he could go back to that time. But here he was, nearing the end of his long life.

###

Yuji received a phone call while he was doing homework in his dining room as per his parents' request. "Hello?" he greeted the person on the other end. "Wait a second, you found that old crackpot you were telling me about? What? No way! I gotta see this! I'll meet you there."

Immediately he got up and ran out the door, leaving his work halfway finished. Commandramon decloaked while following him to the elevator.

###

Ayaka listened to Tadashi relay his story over the phone in disbelief while she sat up on her bed. "Are you sure we shouldn't…" Then she listened some more, concerned for her friend. "We'll see about that. This sounds too good to be true."

###

Taizou shook his head as he turned his office chair away from his desk. "I can't believe this. You actually believe this guy?" He listened some more on the phone. "Okay, I'll come just to make sure you don't get killed."

He truly worried about his friend. That was certain.

###

Miki's eyes widened in excitement, despite how she didn't particularly like the boy that was speaking. "That's so awesome! I'm definitely coming!" she exclaimed into the phone while soaking in the hot tub and doing homework. "It's going to be sweet having no parents around for who knows how long."

###

They all gathered in front of the old man's shop with their partners. They didn't know what to expect upon entering, but the shop was definitely far bigger on the inside than on the outside. Among the group, Taizou had the most suspicions about the whole thing and wanted to get done with this as soon as possible.

"So, are you all ready to go to the digital world?" the old Watchmaker asked, walking from out of one of the corridors with his partner.

"Sweet Tardis. So, when do we get to go?" Yuji asked, excited to leave.

"In a few minutes. I'm just going to let you know about everything that you need to," the old man said with a toothy grin. "Mizuki, you ready?"

The girl walked out from the same corridor that her traveling companion and his partner did, her partner Armadillomon in her arms. "I'll explain everything."

After a few minutes, the entire team knew everything that the old man wanted them to know.

"So, why don't you just get Antonio Guevara to do this in the first place? He has a team that he's put together to do just this?" Taizou asked, suspicious.

The Watchmaker was kind of peeved by that question. "Well, that's the thing. No matter when you go in there, you're not coming back for a while and when Antonio finally gets to go into the other world, it will be too late. I already told Tadashi everything."

"And how can I be sure that your whole thing won't create some time loop and we won't be missing anyway?" the buzz-haired boy asked.

"It won't. I've explored time plenty and I know what will happen. Predestination paradoxes just do not happen. It's as if the old timeline is erased whenever you travel through time. Now do you want to find the others or not?"

Ayaka looked toward the others. "I'm still not sure about this. What are we supposed to do if we want to come back? There will already be a version of each of us here."

The old man grinned. "Now, that's a good question." He turned toward Mizuki. "I like this girl." Then he turned back to the blonde. "It's simple: you just sneak into your rooms in the middle of the night and make physical contact with your other selves. The resulting temporal paradox will cause you to become one again."

"There are a couple of side-effects to that that you should probably tell them about," the red-head warned him.

"Oh, but they don't need to know about that just yet," the Watchmaker objected. "Besides, it's nothing bad."

"Side-effects?" Yuji inquired, confused.

"What kind of side-effects?" Taizou inquired, even more suspicious.

The old man shook his head. "You shouldn't have mentioned that, Mizuki. Believe me, it's nothing bad. You'll see. Now, let's move through time and space, shall we?" The old man then pulled a lever and the clock shop started to shake.

"What? I didn't agree to this!" Taizou shouted, trying to hold onto something as the building they were in tumbled through time and space.

"Yeah! What the heck?" Coronamon yelled out, grabbing onto a bulkhead.

"You really need to get those inertial dampener's fixed!" Mizuki yelled out, sitting in a chair with seatbelts around her with her legs crossed.

"Yeah, you never mentioned this!" Tadashi shouted, somewhat irate and holding onto a pillar with both his arms and legs.

Then the shaking stopped and everyone let go of their bulkheads. The clock shop man then spoke again. "Okay, now, everybody out!"

The group looked at each other and then walked over to the door to the Clock Shop. When they took their time to go out the door, the Watchmaker spoke. "You know, you don't have forever, kids."

Taizou looked back at the old man and sneered. "Wait, you actually expect us to just go out there?" he asked.

"Of course. Then again, since you're taking your sweet time…" the Watchmaker trailed off before turning to his giant clock of a partner. "Come on, Clockmon! Send them out!"

"Chrono Breaker!" the digimon yelled out. The next moment, the kids were out of the clock shop, about ten meters away from it.

Tadashi looked around and as soon as he saw the vast expanse of desert around him, he spoke. "We actually made it."

"What? Did that guy just put us in the digital world without permission?" Taizou inquired, flabbergasted.

"We didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to our families," Ayaka complained.

"And neither did Tai's team when _they _first went to the digital world," the old man stated from just outside the door to his giant time machine. "Believe me, I was there."

"Yeah right! That's just a cartoon," Miki replied, not believing him. "It wasn't real."

"You should ask Ryo about it sometime," the old man stated before turning around. "_Or, _you could ask Takato, since worked alongside Tai, Takuya, Davis, Taiki and Marcus to help defeat Quartzmon." With one final chuckle, the Watchmaker shut the door of the Clock Shop.

Taizou was livid and so he ran up to the giant time machine and knocked on the front door loudly. "Hey, let us back in!"

"Eh, just think, we get to go off without our parents," Yuji said happily.

"You might want to get back from that," Tadashi cautioned the boy with the short brown hair, who gave him a glare. Suddenly, the Clock Shop disappeared into the ground with lightning. With that, Taizou got even angrier.

"You idiot! You gathered us together. You set this up!" Taizou yelled.

"Yeah! I had a hair appointment!" Miki complained.

Ayaka took a deep breath. "We all walked out of that building knowing full well what was going on," the pig-tailed blonde told the group.

Tadashi hadn't expected the rest of the group to be so disappointed. Well, with the major exception of Yuji who was happy as could be to get away from his parents.

"Come on, look on the bright side! At least we don't have any parental supervision!" the long-haired boy cheered. "Plus, we have duplicates in the real world that are living our lives for us!"

Tadashi nodded, still disappointed. "I want to prove him wrong," the blond boy said all the sudden.

"What?" Taizou inquired, confused and looking at his friend.

"The last time he met me he told me that I was going to be evil. There's no way I'm going to let that happen," Tadashi replied.

"And I'm not going to let that happen. Don't you worry!" Coronamon exclaimed at his partner's side.

"Um, in case you haven't noticed, we're all in the digital world and you're worried about your dark side," Taizou stated, unimpressed.

The blond looked up at his friend. "Listen, we have to get going."

"Right… You know, I hope that Hypnos knows we're here. For all we know, they're already sending an ark," the brown-haired boy replied, hopeful.

_"Unfortunately, that won't be possible,"_ the group was startled to hear a voice coming from their digivices. They pulled them out to see a hologram of the Watchmaker standing in front of them, grinning. _"I installed a stealth program in your digivice so that none of the organizations out there will detect you until you finish your mission. Of course, they may detect your life signs, but it should take them a while to find out who you are."_

"What? That's blackmail!" the Taizou exclaimed angrily.

"Come on, you don't want to go home so soon, do you?" Yuji asked, grinning. Taizou shot his ex-best friend a death glare.

_"You need to do this. Who knows, you might grow a little, much like the Digidestined," _the old man stated. _"Just go north. That's all I'm asking. There's a compass program in your digivices as well that will lead you to Oppidum Septentrionale. There you will meet your sixth member. Just beware of any others you may meet."_

Tadashi nodded. "Okay, we'll do this. You guys with me?" he asked the group, a serious expression on his voice.

"It's not like we have much of a choice," Ayaka responded. "I'm in."

"Same here, but you already knew that," Yuji said, trying to be as charming as possible.

"I guess that hair appointment will have to wait," Miki conceded, disappointed.

The last one was Taizou. He looked Tadashi straight in the eye for several seconds before giving his answer. "I'll go, but don't expect me to like it."

Tadashi smiled at his friends. "Alright, let's do this. Okay, Yuji, what's the name of our mysterious other Tamer?"

Yuji looked at his friend with a bit of confusion before grabbing his digivice and accessing the holographic map to detect the other Tamer in that world. He then clicked on the dot.

"Eduardo Diaz. His partner is something named Prokyomon," the long-haired boy read off his digivice.

"Hmm… I wonder what the origin of that name is," Ayaka said. "Eduardo is similar to Edward but Diaz… Hmm…"

"It's Spanish," Solarmon stated.

"So we're dealing with a Spaniard," Taizou stated.

"According to this, he's some American. He was born in Lancaster, California on August 3, 1988," Yuji stated.

"Well, let's get going, then," Tadashi said. "Ready Coronamon?"

"I was born ready!" the lion replied.

"How about you, Commandramon? Ready to work with these chumps?" Yuji inquired of his partner.

"Absolutely, master!" the cyborg dino replied.

"Good to hear! And don't call me master!" the long-haired boy responded cheerfully.

"Salamon?" Ayaka asked, nervous that they're actually doing this.

"I'm with you wherever you go," the dog replied.

"How about you, Syakomon?" Miki inquired.

"I hope we make it," the mollusk replied.

"Oh, don't worry. We'll get out of this mess."

"Solarmon, let's go," Taizou stated, dryly and not happy.

"Certainly."

###

Many miles north of the team, and hours later, Ed checked his digivice for the umpteenth time. He didn't expect anything different, but it was. Where there were no signals around the area that he landed in the digital world, there were dozens. He had an army after him and he had to run.

He hadn't run out of energy yet, something that was strange to him. Yet he pushed himself to run as fast as he could with Prokyomon in his arms, completely defying his size.

It would be awhile until he slowed down.

###

A/N: A few mysteries here and there. And a little time travel, but not too much, though it's admittedly still a mind screw. Oh well. Hopefully you enjoyed this chapter. Hopefully it was good.


	9. Journey Northwards

Chapter 9: Journey Northwards

###

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, just the handful of OCs that appear in this fic.

Also, thanks to Crazyeight for betaing this. Hopefully my efforts at making their reasons for deducing mind control made some sense. But don't mind me, I'm just a mediocre writer who likes posting stuff online.

###

"Sir, I'm detecting five human life-signs without digivices accompanying them."

Rentaro Satsuma raised an eyebrow when he heard his assistant Megumi say what she said. He walked into the computer area to look at the maps of the digital world. "What? Where are they?"

The woman spoke. "Central Digital World, Surface Level, south of where the Takato's team landed months ago when they went to look for Calumon. Ryo Akiyama also ended up there when he had to travel to the digital world just before the D-Reaper invasion. There are also numerous digivice signals in the area of the emergence point."

"Sir, they're traveling far too fast to be walking," Riley indicated, typing in more commands. "Sending in a probe… It turns out they're flying on a Blimpmon."

"Riley, bring up all known Tamers that can digivolve their partners into that digimon," Satsuma requested, his eyes narrowing under his sunglasses. The broad-shouldered man didn't like this. First, there were numerous Tamers that disappeared across Western Europe. Then they appeared in the digital world for some reason, just after Eduardo showed up there. It just didn't make sense to the broad-shouldered man. There had to be something going on.

"Sir, there's only one known, and that's Taizou," Megumi exclaimed, gasping in shock.

"That's impossible. I just saw him this afternoon," Satsuma said. "We haven't received any missing reports from his parents."

"There's a possibility that they're from a non-aligned region such as much of Africa or Central Asia," Riley suggested. From what she heard, the African Union was trying to put together an organization to monitor the barriers between worlds much like what Latin American and the Arab League had both done shortly after the D-Reaper invasion, but had been having problems since a number of the countries involved didn't have the funds required, especially ones such as Somalia or Zimbabwe.

"That's a reasonable hypothesis," Satsuma said, commending the brunette. He was a detective prior to joining Hypnos, so he looked forward to seeing where the clues went. "Still, monitor them until the blimp devolves. Then we will know who they are."

###

Blimpmon flew through the night, the only light on inside was the cabin in the front of the large battle-blimp. And in the cockpit, a certain long-haired boy was staring into space out of boredom. Really, he was supposed to be keeping watch, but that wasn't what was going on. He was just listening to large amounts of music on his CD-player. The CD that he was using just had large amounts of MP3s on it, so there wasn't much of a chance that he was going to run out of music any time soon.

He checked the digivice. Eduardo's location hadn't changed much, though he was running it seemed. Yuji wondered what this guy was like. He imagined that the boy didn't go simply by Eduardo and instead preferred a nickname like Ed, Edd or Eddy. He didn't know much English, though he could understand it pretty well from watching large amounts of TV in the language, including that show he alluded to in thought earlier about three boys with the same name. His parents made the faux pas of thinking that he should watch an hour of English-language television while he was studying the incredibly foreign language several years earlier.

Unfortunately, he noticed something else on the digivice's screen: there were numerous other signals in between him and the American boy they were after. And it was only a matter of minutes before they reached that part of the digital world.

The boy immediately roused his partner who was sleeping next to him. "Commandramon, there's something on up ahead."

The cyborg dinosaur glared at his partner for waking him up. Still, the digimon knew that he had to be alert in case there were enemies afoot. Then Yuji spoke to Blimpmon.

"There's something up ahead. I'm not sure if you should go near it," the long-haired Tamer told the airship that he was on.

"You sure about that?" the digimon asked. "I'm not detecting anything up ahead."

"I detected a bunch of other Tamer's digivices," Yuji explained. "Commandramon, go wake up the others." He was showing a strange display of intelligence. Then again, being stuck at juvie in a cell with someone named 'Bubba' kind of did that to him.

"Okay, I am detecting a number of digimon life signs along with… what's this? Human life-signs?" Blimpmon narrated. "Oh my…"

Tadashi got up to the cockpit after undoing his seatbelt. "What's going on?"

"We detected a bunch of other Tamers," Yuji explained, going through the profiles for each of them.

"What? Did Antonio Guevara decide to go to the digital world early?" Tadashi asked with a sneer.

"No, these guys are all from Europe. Most of them are actually French," the long-haired boy replied. "Okay, there's some German guy named Gunter too. Plus a couple of Italians. Oh, and a few Spaniards are on here too."

The mention of the French being involved made Tadashi remember the French girl from that dream. _"You are my favorite," _he remembered her saying, but wondered what it meant.

"Blimpmon, avoid that group of Tamers at all costs," the blond told the airship just as Taizou walked up to the front. The brown-haired boy was slightly annoyed that his friend, the guy who stranded them here in the first place, would order his partner around.

"Tadashi, what are you doing?" he inquired in a tone that meant that he didn't want Tadashi doing it.

"There's a group of Tamers up ahead that I think are evil," the pudgy boy responded.

"Right…" Taizou responded, not buying it. He knew that in the real world, good an evil weren't so absolute. True, there would be those with black morality, like Hitler or Pol Pot, and those with white morality who tried their best to be good to everyone. Everyone else was grey and even the white morality was somewhat doubtful since he doubted that anyone was purely good.

"Come on Blimpmon, what's going on?" Tadashi asked the digimon. Unfortunately, he hadn't changed course yet, which was getting the blond a little worried.

"Okay, the nearest digivice signal belongs to some French dude named Pierre who has a Wizardmon for a partner," Yuji said. "And he's far away from everyone else other than a group of three other Tamers, all with their digimon at the Ultimate level."

"What?" Taizou gasped. "Wait, why are you saying that?"

"Come on, man, Wizardmon could like read minds or something on the show. Maybe he's got Blimpmon under mind control or something," the long-haired boy responded. "Plus, this group seems to be some sort of hive mind. All these digimon signals that head near these groups of Tamers just suddenly join up for no reason."

"You've got to be kidding me," Taizou responded before going over to the controls. "Blimpmon, can you hear me?"

"Certainly," the airship responded. "Sorry, I kind of blacked out for a few seconds. I think we need to get out of here."

"That's what I've been trying to tell you!" Tadashi exclaimed.

That was when he noticed that Taizou's eyes were blank.

###

Deep within Taizou's mind, he found himself tied to the wall inside a room with all sorts of bizarre devices and tools, some of which he knew the use of, others he didn't, and others he wish he didn't know. He shuddered at the sight. Some of these were torture instruments. _Amnesty International would go berserk,_ he thought.

"Unfortunately, they're not here right now, since this is the Digital World," Taizou heard a woman speak in a French accent. He looked in the direction of the sound to see a strikingly beautiful woman with black hair up in a strange style, thick black eye shadow, black lipstick and a long, extravagant black dress.

It took Taizou only a couple seconds to realize who she was. "You were in the dream of a friend of mine," he stated.

"A friend?" the woman asked touching the boy's left cheek. "I would like to hear more."

"What are you doing?" the brown-haired boy asked, suspicious. He agreed with Tadashi's sentiment that this girl was evil just by looking at her and seeing the little torture chamber he was in.

"Well, I tried to bring your partner digimon into my little army, not knowing that he had a Tamer," she explained. "It turns out that if we want to control a Tamed digimon, we have to go through the Tamer first. I have to admit, you're the first one my partner has faced awake."

"So, where is your partner now?" he asked, looking around. "I don't see her anywhere."

"That's because _he's _right here," she responded, touching his head. "I might have to do some work on you. It's a shame, since you're really not my type."

"Your type?" the brown-haired boy asked, confused and not liking where this was going.

"Yes, I prefer real men, not pretty boys," she said. "Of course, since this is the realm of the mind, I could always change what you look like."

He was really not liking where this was going.

He tried thinking of a way to combat this woman's influence. _Let's see, this is all a mind illusion. So far, though, I've been letting her control it._

"So, what's your name?" Taizou asked the girl.

"Oh, wouldn't you like to know?" the woman said playfully, moving towards Taizou who flinched. "You can call me the Digimon Queen."

Taizou found that title disturbing. "But, that's… That's Rika Nonaka's title!" he exclaimed.

The Queen smiled. "Yes, it is. I figured that since Rika is no longer with us, I'd take the title for myself."

"You didn't even do anything to earn it, though," Taizou objected.

The girl smiled. "Look outside when you get a chance. Since you're not really my type, I'm probably just going to put you on the front lines, though, so you'll have to get used to that. At least Blimpmon will be useful for carrying troops."

Taizou really wanted out of there. _Come on, think!_

###

"Okay, any more ideas?" Tadashi asked the group, hoping for at least a little input.

"Well, here's one," Yuji started to suggest, despite knowing that everyone would hate his idea. "We need to break this whole mind thing off, right? So how about we go into one of those Data Streams that we've been constantly avoiding? Come on, it's good!"

"Yeah, but aren't you worried about Taizou suffering brain damage from suddenly being disconnected from this link?" Ayaka objected. "And how do we know it's actually some sort of mind control?"

"You know, according to my training, that was what was recommended," Commandramon indicated. "Of course, you could end up anywhere in the digital world if you're not careful, so we're only supposed to use it as a last resort."

"But if whoever is doing this controls Taizou, that means they'll control Blimpmon too, right?" Miki deduced. "Yeah, we should do your suggestion, especially since this creep might go into my mind too and I definitely don't want that. Ew!" The dark-haired girl grimaced.

"All in favor of going through a Data Stream raise your hands," Tadashi said, raising his own. Miki and Yuji both favored this decision along with their digimon. Ayaka on the other hand didn't.

"I support that decision," Blimpmon told the team over the intercom. "We need to do whatever we can to get him out of that trance."

Ayaka still wasn't too sure. This wasn't a good idea to her. She didn't even know what was going on with Taizou in the first place.

Suddenly, just as they were on their way to the nearest data-stream, the group felt the airship they were on shake. "Okay, what just happened?" Miki asked, annoyed that she couldn't sleep through whatever crisis they were in.

"There are a number of digimon headed our way," Blimpmon told the group from overhead.

"They're Champion-Levels, five of them," Yuji said, looking at his digivice and panicking. "We're doomed."

"There are only five of them and they're only Champions," Ayaka assured the group, looking at her digivice. "Obviously whoever's behind this has Ultimates at their disposal, so most likely they're just trying to disable us."

"And make us join their twisted army," Tadashi concluded. "Coronamon, Ayaka and Salamon, come with me."

"What? You mean we're going to be fighting?" the blonde asked, frightened at the prospect. They had never faced this many enemies before.

"Yeah, we're the only ones that can fly so it has to be us," he told her.

"But can't we just direct the battle from in here?" she suggested.

"You know, she's got a point," Coronamon stated, agreeing with the girl. "I wouldn't want you to get killed by accident."

The airship shook again. "Okay, we'll direct the battle from in here," the blond ordered, not really liking the suggestion from the girl but seeing the practicality of it. The four of them walked to the back where Blimpmon started to open up a large hatch. "Ready Coronamon?"

"You bet!"

"How about you, Salamon?" Ayaka asked her partner, nervous about this battle.

"We'll do what we have to," the small dog replied.

"Digivolution activate!" the two Tamers yelled, taking advantage of the new cardless digivolution feature.

"Coronamon digivolve to… Firamon!"

"Salamon digivolve to… D'Arcmon!"

The two Champion-levels flew out of the airship's hatch, ready to fight whatever forces were attacking them.

"Okay, now for you guys," Tadashi said to the other two Tamers in the airship. "Blimpmon, keep the hatch open. Yuji and Miki, digivolve your partners to Champion and head to the edge of the hatch. We're going to give these enemies a few attacks from behind. Blimpmon, make sure that you attack every enemy that's in front of you."

"Okay, man, this is going to rock! Digivolution Activate!" Yuji exclaimed, holding out his digivice as his partner ran to the back.

"Commandramon digivolve to… Sealsdramon!" the reptile shouted, taking up his position.

"Eh, so much for a good night's sleep," Miki commented as she held out her digivice. "Digivolution activate!"

"Syakomon digivolve to… Ranamon!" The female digimon took up a position next to Sealsdramon. "So, honey, ready to give this our best?" she asked in a southern accent, or better yet, an Osaka accent.

"Yeah, sure," the cyborg answered gruffly. "Hey, Yuji, there's a problem. I don't have any long-range attacks."

"Okay, no problemo. Let me look through my cards," the long-haired boy shuffled through his deck, trying to find something that would be useful. "Aha! Oh yeah!" he celebrated before sliding a card through is digivice. "Digi-Modify, MetalGarurumon's Metal Wolf Claw, activate!"

###

Taizou, in the meantime, was still brainstorming. _Let's see, what should I do now? _He had to hurry it up unfortunately, since he was attached to the wall of the giant torture chamber. He knew that with that girl's partner messing about in his mind, he had to do something quick.

He took a deep breath, or so that seemed to him, and then proceeded to shape the room he was in. "Now, what should we start with," the Queen asked, moving through the various torture devices.

He decided to mess with that last. But first things first, he removed the restraints that were holding him back.

Then he thought of his friends, creating images of them in the mindscape and surrounding himself with them. True, they weren't actually them; however, it should make an effective anchor. The Queen noticed something was up. There seemed to be something going on with her current project so she looked straight at him and gasped at the sight.

"Well, what do you know? You're actually good with manipulating the environment of your mind," she told him with a twisted smile.

"There's no way I'm going to let you brainwash me, ma'am," Taizou said, smirking slightly.

"Well, it's a shame I'm not going to let you go. You'll make a good transport for my soldiers," she replied, using her abilities to try to banish the images of Taizou's friends, though it seemed she was having trouble getting rid of Tadashi for some reason.

Taizou fought back though, and rematerialized his friends and then brought forth his mother and his sister. He hoped that the others were planning something, since he didn't know how long he could hold this up. He thought of more people, Jeremy, Yamaki, Satsuma, Antonio.

He thought up all their partners as well.

He was running out of friends to bring to mind.

"So, what are you after, anyway?" the girl asked, smiling. "You weren't sent after Ed, were you?"

Taizou looked at the girl straight in the eye. "What makes you think that?"

The Queen chuckled. "Oh please, it's either that or… of course… Your friends are stuck in the digital world. Only they're not. They were taken beyond the Sovereign's level, whatever that means." She smiled even more widely. "There's a lot you know about this world that I don't. You would be valuable. If you join me, I can let you keep your free will."

Taizou glared. However, the girl gave him an idea. He caused each of the original Tamers of Shinjuku to appear in the mindscape along with their partners. The room was so full at that point that the walls fell over, revealing the blackness beyond. "There's no way I'm joining you," the brown-haired boy replied point-blank. "You can scour the entire digital world for us and you can submit me and my friends to the worst kind of tortures but there's no way I'm giving in to you, lady!"

She was shocked at his determination and his mental fortitude. But she had a back-up plan. "You may not join me, but maybe one of your friends will." She caused the image of Tadashi to walk forward. "Maybe him." She then brought forth the image of Antonio forward and gazed at his bulk. "Who's he?"

"That's Antonio Guevara," Taizou responded. "He's my mentor." The dark-clad woman's expression changed from one of admiration to one of sheer rage.

"Him!" she yelled. Apparently she recognized the name though Taizou had no idea why.

"Yeah, he goes over my code. He's a real nice guy," the brown-haired boy responded, surprised that the girl was steaming at his sight.

Then everything went black.

###

A few seconds earlier in the digital world, Yuji was making his final preparations. "Okay, guys, get in!" Tadashi yelled out to his and Ayaka's partners.

Firamon was busy shooting down a pair of champion-levels that were after him. "Alright, coming in!" he yelled out, hitting an Aquilamon using a fireball launched from the jewel on his head. "Man, these guys are rough!"

"La Pucelle!" D'Arcmon yelled out, slashing a Snimon across the chest before heading into the airship along with the lion.

"Okay, closing the bay doors," Blimpmon warned the group. Suddenly, as the door was almost closed, a dark-feathered Saberdramon attempted to come in, almost getting stuck in the bay door.

"Metal Wolf Claw!" Sealsdramon yelled out, unleashing a number of missiles from a number of compartments all over his body, causing the flaming bird to get flushed out.

"Now, brace yourselves!" Blimpmon shouted through the overhead speakers. He didn't really need to say that to the humans who were already strapped. The digimon, on the other hand, were all thrown back as soon as they entered into a data-stream.

They then found themselves literally on the edge of the world. Blimpmon had to do all he could to prevent himself from falling into the void beyond the landmass that they were right next to. The airship then skidded across the grassy ground, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.

"Well, the good news is that no one followed us into that data-stream," the rust-colored blimp commented. "On the other hand…"

The digimon devolved with the tamers in it, causing them to fall into the ruined ground as he assumed his rookie form of Solarmon.

"Okay, will someone tell me what the heck just happened?" Yuji asked the group, lying in the dirt.

"It seems that Blimpmon sustained too much damage and devolved," Sealsdramon commented. "Good work, soldier!"

"Eh, thanks," the conglomeration of gears remarked.

Tadashi got up groggily and walked over to Taizou, who was gazing up at the globe in the sky. The brown-haired boy looked happy to be alive. "So, you alright?"

"Yeah. I just had to fight off that chick from your visions using my willpower, that's all," Taizou responded with a smile. "It's thanks to my friends that I could do that."

Tadashi grinned widely. "Awesome!"

Then the brown-haired boy sat up. "No, not awesome. She was going to do unspeakable things to me." The boy took a deep breath before the next part. "They're after Eduardo, but that's only the start." Taizou looked straight into Tadashi's eyes with all seriousness. "Then she's going to go after you, Tadashi."

This took the blond boy aback. "What? She knows about me?"

"To fight her off, I had to remember you guys. All of you," the brown-haired boy responded. "I didn't think she'd even notice you since… You know…"

"Okay, I know I'm not a good looking guy, but… Hey!" Tadashi was slightly offended.

"Hey," the brown-haired guy responded. "There's no reason to be offended. Don't worry about it."

The blond boy stood there for a few seconds, thinking about everything they've already gone through. Then he heard his friend speak again.

"You know, I still wish we would have stayed home," Taizou admitted. "And I really wish I didn't have to deal with that chick. Do you miss anybody?"

Tadashi thought about it for a second. He really missed his parents and his older brother. And, for some reason, he also wished that he had Jeri around since she had at least been in the digital world before. Still, he felt a need to be strong and wasn't going to admit it. He stood there silent until he heard a screech from Miki.

"What is that thing!" the dark-haired girl yelled, causing the two boys and their partners to run over to her. Right in front of her was a grey, spherical object with what looked like a camera on the front.

The group took out their digivices to find data on it. It wasn't a digimon. Instead, it was a probe of some sort sent by an organization in the real world. On the side were the letters 'SAXUM'.

"I thought the old man said they wouldn't find us," Yuji remarked, scratching his chin.

"He just said they wouldn't detect our digivices," Taizou corrected.

"So, Saxum knows we're here now?" Ayaka muttered, looking at the probe. Suddenly, a fireball hit the device, causing it to disintegrate. "What was that for!" the blonde yelled at Tadashi and Coronamon.

"We can't have them following our trails," the blond boy told her, clearly frightened at the fact that one of the organizations in the real world could have found them already.

###

In the real world, that was the case. In fact, Riley and Tally had already discovered their life signs and relayed that information to Yamaki and Satsuma. Saxum decided to send them the video they got of them, with an irate Antonio Guevara talking to them from half a world away.

_"Okay, what's the meaning of this?"_ the heavy man asked through a video screen on the wall, decidedly angry. The meeting room was filled with the various interns that worked there as well as the other workers who monitor the net.

"It turns out that we had no idea they were in the digital world, provided that actually is them," Yamaki replied. "I took the liberty of contacting their parents at this late hour and it turns out that they're all at home, supposedly."

_"Any ideas?" _another Saxum executive, this time a thin, middle-aged woman with darker skin and her greying hair tied up in a bun, inquired in accented English.

Keith Jackson raised his hand. Yamaki already knew what the American was going to suggest. "He wants sane ideas, not ones that involve clones or time travel," the blond Japanese man told him, and the American lowered his arm.

_"I have an idea that has been seen once before, though it's not a good one," _Echelon executive Professor Robert McCoy said. The fifty-something year-old man then proceeded to cause some panic. _"Remember that time when the original team of Tamers came back from the digital world with Jeri and she turned out to actually be an advance agent of the D-Reaper?"_

Yamaki's eyes narrowed under his sunglasses as he remembered that horrific breach of security. Satsuma had read up on what happened, though he realized it must have irked the blond man to no end.

"We'll look into this," the broad-shouldered Japanese man told the executives on camera. "In fact, I would suggest running a medical check-up on each of the Tamers. I would also recommend having close watch on all of them."

"That sounds like a reasonable suggestion. We'll have to make sure that they're kept watch on from the shadows so that they don't suspect anything," the blond man added.

_"You should put cameras in their classrooms,"_ the executive from the Chinese organization recommended, causing the blond man to roll his eyes behind his sunglasses.

"We will take your suggestion into consideration," Yamaki stated. "In the meantime, we'll have to find a way past the digivices' stealth capabilities."

###

In the digital world, a girl seethed, despite being waited on by a number of her servants, a few of which weren't even Tamers. Still, they had Mapachemon controlling them. The large, grey raccoon was behind her, seemingly asleep but at the same time controlling her army subconsciously.

She then sensed another presence through a Wisemon who was patrolling near the borders with Dorbickmon's domain.

She quickly slipped into the mental room, changing from the form of a fourteen-year-old girl to a fully-grown woman in an exotic costume. Then she brought forth the Tamer who had trespassed into her territory.

Imagine her sudden surprise when he turned out to be a red-haired Japanese man who immediately started to hit on her.

"Hey, how's it going, sugar," he said, grinning. He had long-hair in a pony-tail and a pair of glasses as well as a long, pointy goatee.

"Sorry, I'm under-aged," the girl said, rolling her eyes.

"Well, ma'am, you certainly don't look under-aged, but I'll take your word for it," the guy responded, shuddering at the thought. "So, lady, what's with the fancy torture chamber?" Before the girl could answer, he undid the shackles that held him to the wall. "I think you'll have to be more creative than this to brainwash me. Besides, why do that when you don't need to?" His expression turned serious.

"Okay, what do you want?" the girl asked, glaring at the man.

"Well, it's simple really. The name's Crimson and I'm here with a proposition. I want _you _to help me take over the digital world and bring order to it," the man offered, grinning as he did so.

"Oh, please, another 'let's take over the world' type of guy," the girl complained, rolling her eyes.

"Here's the thing, lady, I'm here to bring peace to the digital world. It's all 'survival of the fittest' out there and I don't think it should be like that," Crimson explained. "Come on, you have to admit, it's a cool idea."

"Digimon were created with the survival of the fittest built-in," the girl told him, turning away. "Besides, what makes you think you have the skills to take it over yourself?"

"Oh, I have my own personal army consisting of Champions and Ultimates ready to take the Dragon Nation by force," he said, changing area to one of where he was with a large, metallic digimon behind him that had a pair of twin cannons on his back. That was before the girl noticed the large army behind him. "Oh, and this is my partner, Machinedramon," he introduced, smiling.

"Oh, really? You're partners with a Mega?" the Digimon Queen asked in disbelief.

The Japanese man tipped his head. "Yeah, just about."

"Here's the thing, I'm in the digital world for one thing, and one thing only and that would be a boy named Ed," the Queen stated, glaring holes through the red-haired Tamer.

"Ah, boys… You teen girls don't think of anything else, do you?" Crimson asked, grinning and making the girl really angry.

"That is not true! Ugh, forget it."

"Besides, this is a pretty big army just to pick up a dude that probably rejected you in the first place," Crimson indicated. "Come on, how about you put it to good use, start up a nice sized army of wild digimon and wipe the floor with either the Dragon Dominion or Daemon's realm."

The girl looked up at the Japanese man in shock. "Daemon? You mean there's an evil digimon ruling one of the areas of this world?"

"Well, yeah. Dorbickmon's pretty evil too, ruling the western part of the digital world with an iron fist. Come on, you know you want to do this. Daemon rules the northern region, supposedly, though he mainly rules Oppidum Septentrionale, a vast city surrounding a Village of Beginnings that was set up after the digital world's population was nearly completely depleted during the D-Reaper war."

The girl thought about it for a second. "Okay, I'll do this. Is there anybody else?"

Crimson chuckled a bit. "Well, I did get a friend from the real world to join us. He's going to be here soon, so you better not brainwash him or his allies, no matter how much you may be enticed about some of them."

The Queen narrowed her eyes at the man. "Okay, anything else?"

"Just release me from this stupid vision and don't try brainwashing any of my army, and you've got yourself an ally," Crimson said, smiling and stroking his long goatee.

Neither knew what they were really getting into.

###

A/N: Wow, just wow. That chick is crazy. And she won't be defeated for a while, either. Oh dear.

Crimson… the name is taken from the villain in Digimon World 2, a game that I used to own but never beat (much like a lot of my old video games… hehehe. I did beat the third one, though, like ten years ago). I thought it was a worthy shout out. You won't see much of him, though, at least not for a while. It's a bit difficult when villains are way out of the heroes' league.

A few extra notes: Saxum is the Latin word for stone. As far as the actual meaning of the acronym… I know that the first words are most likely _Seguridad de las Americas. _As far as the rest… Other things in Latin: _Oppidum Septentrionale _quite literally means 'Northern City' (It's even declined correctly for the neuter gender). Then there's Prokyomon's name which comes from Latin procyon, the genus or whatever that raccoons belong to (it's use of the letter K instead of a C is partially because I keep on pronouncing the C in procyon hard and partially because K reflects the original sound better than C does).


	10. The Architect

Chapter 10: The Architect

###

Disclaimer: I don't own digimon.

Also, thanks to CrazyEight for going over this chapter.

A bit of a warning. This chapter is pretty heavy on the exposition and flashback side of things. And it focuses on an OC, which, if you don't like it, you can probably skip it if you felt like it. It's not like there's tons that will show up in the next chapter from this.

###

He found himself in his father's house, alone, something that rarely happened. Ed wandered around for a few seconds to try and find him, but he couldn't find the man anywhere, even after looking through into his room. Glancing around it, everything was in order, all the pictures on the walls of family and friends were neat, the blue bed on the opposite end of the room from the door was made and there wasn't any unnecessary clutter lying around.

"Dad!" Ed called out, wondering where his old man was. Something about this whole situation seemed rather eerie. Looking outside, he saw it was summer. _It's a dream, _he thought. _In South America, it would be winter and there wouldn't be any leaves on the trees. _

He needed to wake up but even though he tried to will himself awake, he couldn't. It was as if there was something preventing him. So, he thought about it for a second and moved out of his father's room down the hall and to the right, on the same side as his father's room. In the meantime, he tried all sorts of things such as pinching himself to wake up.

Unfortunately, right in the bathroom was a brunette girl with her hair in a ponytail wearing a white shirt and long, black pants.

"You!" Ed exclaimed. It all made sense to him. The only person who ever saw his drawings of Coonmon other than him and his father was her. "You're Mapachemon's partner, aren't you?"

"I am," she said. "I thought you weren't going to use those drawings though. I'm sorry if you were offended."

Ed glowered at her. "You went through my personal stuff. The reason why I didn't scan that drawing in my original digivice was because the digimon was too unstable, too dangerous the way I designed him."

"No, you only refused to scan him because your father told you not to," she objected.

"And he gave some good reasons not to. The digimon's a strong telepath. The only reason I designed him like that was to try and find…" Ed was cut off.

"Ed, I'm here to save you." The black-haired boy was silenced by that. Then the look of shock turned back to one of anger.

"There's no reason to save me. If anything, Marie, I'm going to have to save _you _from Coonmon," he shot back. "Get out of my head."

Then she did something that he hadn't expected. Mapachemon appeared behind her, destroying that part of the house completely as his dream was filled with disturbing images. He realized he couldn't fight it on his own unless he tried to combat her himself.

###

He woke up, trying to get the twisted imagery out of his mind. He tried to fight it off, thinking of everyone he loved, not noticing the red glow from his digivice. "Get out of my mind!" he yelled, getting the attention of his partner digimon who was sleeping in another part of the cave.

"Ed, what's wrong?" the brown-furred raccoon asked, concerned for his partner.

The boy stopped holding the sides of his head and took a deep breath. He got up and started walking, even though he felt the grogginess of only a few hours' sleep. "Prokyomon, we have to get out of here."

"What? Why?" he asked, leaping onto his partner's shoulder.

"_She's_ in the digital world and she tried using her partner to attack my mind," the black-haired boy replied. Then he pulled out his digivice. The black and gold device showed him that there was a signal coming straight for him from the direction of the dozen or so tamers that arrived in the digital world many hours before.

He ran as quickly as he could, hoping that he could get away.

_The pink beams of energy… _He noticed one headed for him. It was going to hit him and he knew it. So he let it.

And he was somewhere else immediately. Checking his digivice, he was hundreds of miles away from the other signal.

He took a deep breath and let it go, dropping down to the ground. They were in the middle of a forest with large amounts of mist.

Then he saw an illusion standing in front of him of a skinny man with long, black hair in a ponytail and black, circular sunglasses. "Dad?" he asked, getting back up again before the image disappeared into the mist.

###

_The ponytailed man walked in the door to see his son on the couch, watching TV. He smiled at the boy, who looked at him. "How was work?" Ed asked._

_ "Good. My design was accepted," the man responded. He was Marcos Diaz, an architect._

_ "That's great," the black-haired boy replied, getting up. Then he noticed his mother walk into the room with an angry expression on her voice. He had no idea why she was looking so mad._

_ "Hi, honey, how are you doing?" the man asked, smiling at her._

_ "What time is it?" she asked, livid._

_ "It's about five-thirty. I'm sorry, I had to stay a little while after work. My design got accepted," the man replied._

_ "What? _That's _your excuse?" the woman asked, angrily. "I know what you were really doing."_

_ Marcos looked at her with a bit of confusion. "I had to wait a little bit to find out whether I had been accepted or not."_

_ The woman glared at him. "Stop making excuses. I know you were with another woman," she accused._

_ The man looked at her in shock. "Why would I ever do that to you?" he asked. "Don't you remember when we first got together how I broke up with you temporarily because you were still married?"_

_ Ed looked up at that. He had no idea that his mother was married before. At the same time, he wanted to get out of the room since he knew that this was about to get ugly._

_ "Yeah? Well, that doesn't mean anything, you…" It got ugly alright as Ed's mother started spouting out streams of profanity so he ran into his room, shutting the door behind him. His mother didn't notice that he did that, but his father did, momentarily distracting the man from the argument he was in. "Are you even listening to me?" the woman shouted when she noticed that Marcos wasn't even looking at her. She caught her husband's attention, though._

_ "Look at what we're doing to each other and to our son. Think of him, please," the long-haired man requested, trying to soothe the argument._

_ Unfortunately, she still wanted to argue._

_ Ed moved over to his desk and put on his earbuds before starting to draw. He drew a picture of a raccoon, an idea he had in his head for an original digimon of his own creation._

_ He even gave it a name: Coonmon._

_###_

Prokyomon hung out on his partner's shoulder while he walked through the foggy swamps they were currently stuck in. Ed was watching out for more illusions. He wanted to know what those were about.

"So, what now?" the digimon inquired. "Where are we going?"

"According to my digivice, there's a city about thirty kilometers north of here," Ed responded, ready to get out of the digital world and back home with his dad where he belonged. "I was thinking of heading straight there. After that… I don't know. Maybe we should find a way to get to the Sovereigns' level. I think they might be able to send us back to my world. After all, that one named Zhuqiaomon had to have a way to send his Devas into my world, right?"

"That's an idea," Prokyomon replied. "So, how about those others?"

Ed pulled out his digivice. There were more Tamers now, a lot more. It seemed like there was almost an army in the digital world, ready to strike. And to make things worse, there were several teams spreading out toward the cardinal directions.

It turned out that the area that Ed and his partner landed in was the center of the highest level of the digital world. The American boy wondered if there was a quicker way to get to Sovereign's level than this.

He decided to switch into a jog. At least that meant that he was getting exercise. Not to mention it helped that he had near infinite stamina in the digital world so long as he put his mind to it and didn't think about getting tired.

Not that he didn't get exercise back home.

###

_"So, what's up, man?" a skinny, black boy asked. He was wearing a blue shirt and black shorts. Ed wasn't smiling like he was._

_ "Nothing in particular."_

_ The other boy knew something was up. They met at the nearby elementary school to play a little basketball before it got too hot outside and it was obvious that Ed was in a bad mood. "Come on, you can tell me," he assured his best friend._

_ "Matt, I think my parents are getting a divorce," Ed stated. "My mom… she's been acting a bit weird for some reason. My dad's trying to hold everything together, but…"_

_ Matt looked at his friend in understanding. "Don't worry, Ed. No matter what happens, you'll still have your friends."_

_ "Yeah, I know that," the black-haired boy responded, still downcast._

_ "Come on, man, let's shoot some hoops. That should get your mind off of this," Matt said._

_ They started playing and the world was sane for at least a few minutes._

###

Ed continued his jog until something crossed his line of sight. He spotted his friend Matt, walking away from him. Seeing this, he ran after his friend, who switched to a run himself. "Ed, what are you doing?"

"I'm going to try to find out who is doing this," he replied. The figure disappeared and he was in a clearing. Looking up, he saw some bat-like Pipismon hanging from the nearby trees.

"They couldn't be causing this," the raccoon spoke.

"No, definitely not." Ed checked his digivice. There weren't any nearby digivice signals, although one did seem to be heading his way. He knew it as the one from earlier. Clicking on his screen, he identified the person that was headed his way as Gunter Kaufmann.

_Him? _He met the teen in Paris on accident. He had apparently detected his digivice signal. There was no way he could be working for… _No… She couldn't have…_

It figured. The one ally he had made while trapped in that apartment in Paris had to have gotten brainwashed by that girl. By the digimon he created…

###

_One day, his father took him driving. It was a good stress reliever for both of them. Ed wanted his dad to take him to his hometown in California, but his old man wouldn't take him that far. Still, going across town to Henderson was a good idea. Maybe if he was good, he'd convince his dad to take him to Hoover Dam._

_ Still, they had a good time just exploring. "So, what do you want to do when you grow up?" Marcos asked from the driver's seat of the SUV they were in._

_ "I want to make video games," Ed responded, a little embarrassed by his admission._

_ "Make video games. You're not going to be an architect like your old man?" he joked, smiling widely._

_ Ed just shrugged. "Well, it's kind of like architecture. Video game makers have to build stuff, right?"_

_ "Yeah, you're right. I'm sure that some of your artwork can go toward that," Marcos told him. "Though, it's a bit more complicated than that. You'll have to learn how to program and that will take some work. It's like learning another language in a way."_

_ "Can you program?" Ed inquired._

_ "Nah, I just know how to draw. There is a little computer work with my job, but other than that…"_

_ Ed nodded at his father._

_ "You know, on the way home, we should head by the library and check out a computer book. I hear C++ is a commonly used programming language that's use in a lot of game programming, though it's going to be a while before you can create a game with it."_

_ "Hey, maybe I should start doing that. The sooner, the better, right?" the boy asked, smiling widely. That had to be the best day he had in a long time. Or so he thought._

_###_

_ Later on, he was at his house trying out that programming book he got from the library. He still couldn't make heads or tails on it and didn't get all the math. It seemed like high-school level stuff. Still, he moved along, reaching the chapter on if-statements when his mother opened the door._

_ Ed turned to her, smiling. "Hi, mom."_

_ "Hi, Ed, how was your day?" she asked. She was still dressed for work as a manager at a local bank._

_ "Great! Dad and I went for a drive. We went all the way to Henderson and then we went to the library," the boy responded. He noticed his mother's face change upon seeing what was on the computer. "I decided to try to learn how to program video games. You know, put my drawings to good use." He smiled more widely, though he felt uneasy for some reason._

_ Then everything went down the drain._

_ "You're what?!" his mother shouted angrily._

_ "Learning to program. There's nothing wrong with that," Ed responded, his facial expression one of confusion._

_ "Get off that computer right now!" she yelled. "You are _not _learning how to program, young man!"_

_ Ed just sat there in confusion. "What? Why?"_

_ "Marcos! What is this?" she shrieked. Her mental stability was definitely become questionable as of late._

_ Her husband walked into the room, just as confused as Ed was. "He expressed interest in computer science and I thought I'd help him along. There's nothing wrong with that."_

_ "Are you kidding me? My ex-husband was a computer programmer, you idiot!" she exclaimed._

_ Marcos stood there, flabbergasted. "I didn't know that. You never talk about him. Heck, I don't even know his name!"_

_ "Yeah, and you don't need to know it. Now get your son off that computer before he turns into him," she ordered._

_ Marcos didn't want to deny his wife's requests most of the time, but this time he was angry. "No."_

_ "What did you say?" the woman turned around and asked._

_ "I said no," he responded. "There's no reason to."_

_ "Then I'll do it myself!" she yelled, walking straight toward the computer, pushing her son out of the way and turning it off manually._

_ "Mom!" Ed complained, really confused by his mother's actions._

_ "Now to return this stupid library book!" the woman said, running out of the house._

_ "What now?" the chubby boy asked, confused. "She's gone completely nuts."_

_ Marcos made a split second decision. "While she's at work tomorrow, I'm going to change the locks. There's no way I'm going to let this continue."_

_ "So, your marriage is over?" Ed inquired, tearing up._

_ "I hope not but I'm going to tell her that she can't come back in unless she gets some psychiatric help." The man looked sadly toward the door. "There's something else going on. I know it." He then rushed off._

_###_

Ed continued moving. He checked his digivice for more signals and located a large one. He only hoped that it was friendly.

At one point, he spotted another figure, a blond boy with a bowl-cut wearing a blue suit and a white dress-shirt with no tie. The boy turned around and ran. "Gus?"

"So, that's what he looks like," Prokyomon commented, though he was definitely concerned for his partner. "You know, I don't like this that much."

Ed moved forward as quickly as his stout body could go. "We have to check this out. Gunter is coming and he's got Infermon with him. There's no way we can take him on. You can't even reach Champion yet."

The truth was that they had been traveling through that marshy swamp for hours and he was getting sick of it.

He ran a little further, eventually slipping on some moss. He got up and brushed off some of the dirt. "Man, my dad's going to ask me what I did in the digital world and of course I'm going to answer that I tripped in the swamp." He continued on, eventually getting to a clearing where the illusion his hazel-eyed friend Gus waited for him, smiling like the last time he saw him before...

Ed didn't want to think of what happened three weeks before on the way to a friend's house. Instead, he moved forward and asked a question to his 'friend'. "Who are you?"

"I am the guardian of this forest." The stocky boy looked up to see the illusion of his friend disappear. It turned out that one of the trees wasn't actually a tree, but a large Cherrymon instead. "What you saw was merely an illusion created by the mists."

Ed stood there in shock. "There's a city nearby. How far until I reach it?" he asked, getting straight to the point.

"It's only a couple kilometers away. You should be there within the hour. It's unusual seeing a human here." The large tree smiled.

"Well, I've never met a talking tree before either," the stocky boy told him with a grin of his own.

"Before you go, though, I want you to look at something," Cherrymon said, indicating a puddle with his cane. "You seem to have a lot on your mind."

"I saw some images of people I haven't seen in a while," Ed told the tree, moving toward the puddle and looking inside. At first he saw his own reflection but then it changed into the image of his own mother.

He remembered that day too well.

###

_After being barred from the house with the ultimatum that she get psychological help, Lorena Diaz almost immediately filed for divorce from Marcos. That began a fairly short custody battle that almost ended with her ex-husband getting her son._

_ That was until she pulled her trump card on him._

_ "Your honor, you can't do this!" the woman yelled out, her expression showing sheer horror. The judge immediately called for order to the court room._

_ "Ma'am, you haven't received the ruling yet," he said in a southern accent. He was a man in his fifties with a receding hairline and a white moustache. "Now, tell me your final reasons why Marcos Diaz can't take custody of your son." The old man doubted that she would bring up any sort of logical reason. But that was just what she did._

_ She revealed a secret that changed everything. Glaring at Marcos, she spoke with venom in her voice. "Do a DNA test. That man is _not _my son's father." _

_ The court gasped and there was a large amount of murmuring. Marcos looked at the woman with shock and disbelief._

_ "Your honor," the long-haired man said with determination, "I will undergo a DNA test to prove that Ed is in fact my son._

_###_

_ Sometime later, they got the test results back and Marcos found out that the woman who divorced him was telling the truth and there was nothing he could do about it. The woman got Eduardo and he left the courthouse broken._

_ That night, he sat there at his dining table, looking at one of the few pictures he had left since the boy was moved out. He didn't care what the DNA said, there was no way he wasn't his boy._

_ No way._

_ That was when he heard a noise in his back yard and went to investigate. Upon walking out into the dusk, he saw some of his neighbors pointing at it over the cinderblock wall. There was a small building on top of his swimming pool._

_ Marcos stood there with his mouth agape. He had no idea how this could have gotten there. Then suddenly, the door on the front of it opened and an old man walked out. And tripped. Marcos ran over to help him up. _

_The man appeared to be Asian of a sort. He could never tell anyone of those nationalities apart. "Oh, thank you. Oh, great, what the heck am I doing here?" the man looked around._

"_I was about to ask you the same thing," Marcos said, not sure what to make of the situation. "You're in Las Vegas. What are you, some kind of alien or something?"_

"_Las Vegas? Wow, I've never been to sin city before. I had an opportunity forever ago when I went to college at Palo Alto, but I didn't go along with my friends. It was a bachelor party for my friend Antonio, actually." The old man chuckled. "Never cared much for gambling anyway."_

"_Really? My wife… er, ex-wife went there for university," the black-haired man told him, giving him a bit of a smile._

"_Yeah? What years did she go there?" the Watchmaker inquired, curious before turning toward his clock shop._

"'_84 to '88, I believe." The man didn't know what to do with this whole thing._

"_That's funny. That's around the time I went there," the old man told him, grinning crookedly. "What was your ex's name?"_

"_You probably won't remember her, but her name was Lorena Alvarez before marrying me and before marrying her first husband," Marcos told him, before being surprised by the look of recognition on the old man's face._

"_Her… I should have known. She's a wild one, that girl. I knew her first husband. He was a nice guy, but he shouldn't have married her. One time he came home with flowers and found her kissing another man."_

_Marcos looked at the old man in shock and shame. He was the other man. He broke off the relationship for a while but then they got together after she finalized her divorce. "I thought I had a son with her but it turns out that he wasn't mine. Is there a chance that maybe he's the father?" he asked, shivering._

"_What's the boy's birth date?" the old man asked._

"_August 2, 1988," Marcos replied._

"_It's definitely possible. Do you know his name?" the Watchmaker inquired._

"_No, I don't. What's his name and where does he live? I need to see what he's like to get my son away from… away from that woman." Now he was really shivering. He hoped that his plan worked and that the man was a good man. A few seconds later, he got the answer._

###

Ed flinched from the sight of his mother's face. He couldn't stand her anymore after everything that happened and after she kept away from his real father for no reason.

He shivered in the cold, moist air, hoping that maybe the past two years since the divorce were a dream, or at least the past three weeks. Then again, if his mother hadn't kidnapped him and put him in some Parisian orphanage, then he wouldn't have met his partner.

His thoughts of self-doubt were interrupted by the sound of trees falling in the distance. "Do you hear that? We've got to get out of here!" Prokyomon yelled to his partner, who had his digivice in hand.

Just then, a tree fell down, almost on top of Ed. Prokyomon couldn't stand the thought of seeing his partner get crushed by the falling debris or getting killed by whatever it was.

And sure enough, it had to be Infermon. The brown raccoon could see the silhouette of the Ultimate's Tamer on the back. He had to get his partner out of the way of that tree and to the safety of that city.

And his Tamer's scream as the tree headed toward him at an alarming rate only triggered the needed reaction.

**DIGIVOLUTION_**

"Prokyomon digivolve to…" The new form was humanoid in appearance aside from the head of a raccoon and had grey shoulder pads, yellow armor with grey stripes down it and grey pants. The digimon had a pointed grey mask covering his face as well.

"…Guepardomon!"

"Guepardomon…" Ed muttered to himself as his partner got him out of the way.

Cherrymon glared at the giant virus angrily and turned to face him. "Do you realize what you've done?" he shouted and suddenly a large assortment of Woodmon and Mushroomon came out of the woodwork. The large tree realized he wouldn't be able to take this large digimon alone, but with his army, it would be a piece of cake. "Quick, get out of here. We'll distract him!"

Ed wasn't sure about that. "Don't kill the Tamer. He's a friend of mine!" the heavy boy shouted as Guepardomon landed behind.

"Don't worry, I won't. You have my word," Cherrymon stated. "Now go! Your partner's not strong enough to take him on."

Ed had to concede to that. It was better not to pick useless fights.

However, he had this inkling in his stomach that Cherrymon and his comrades were pretty much doomed.

###

It wasn't that long after when the Tamer and his partner reached the outer gates of Oppidum Septentrionale. There he spotted a pair of guards, Knightmon, at the entrance. He hoped that these ones didn't try to decapitate him or something.

The two guards let him through and he walked right on in. Before he was out of earshot though, one of the guards spoke to him. "Since you're a Tamer, you are to go straight to the capital building."

Ed nodded. "Okay, I'll do that. Thanks."

"On the other hand, there will be a delegation waiting to meet you at the end of the bridge. The Chancellor has already detected you from a distance."

Ed nodded again, this time unsure. Then he remembered something. "By the way, if a Tamer with an Infermon tries to get in, don't let him."

"Thank you. We'll keep a look out for him," the Knightmon assured him before turning around and facing the forest. Ed had no idea how long this bridge was, but the view of the massive moat around the city filled him with awe. He also greatly appreciated the beautiful white stone that the bridge made of. He guessed that it was marble, but he wouldn't voice it just in case he was wrong.

He was most of the way to the end when he saw the Chancellor's delegation. Unfortunately for him, the Chancellor was a digimon that he didn't want to see, dressed in red robes. The digimon was Daemon and he had an Anubimon and a MachGaogamon along with an assortment of other digimon.

"Hello, Ed, welcome to Oppidum Septentrionale," the robed digimon greeted him cordially. "I hope you enjoy your stay."

###

_The long search was over and Marcos Diaz had finally found the man he was looking for. Now it was just a matter of waiting for the class to end. He walked briskly through the university's hallways. He wanted to see just what the man was like before letting him know of his son's existence and so he stopped in the open doorway of the lecture hall and watched as the man taught his final class of the day._

_ "Okay, so classes in C++ have a number of features. One of them is known as encapsulation," the man said, smiling. He had short, curly black hair and was wearing a nice suit. The man was also sitting on top of his desk in the front of the classroom. "Who can tell me what encapsulation is in programming?"_

_ A student raised his hand. To Marcos' surprise, the class seemed pretty attentive. The professor called on the dark skinned boy who answered. "It's marking a variable in a class public or private, right?"_

_ "Exactly. Good job, Esteban," the professor smiled widely. Looking at the man, Marcos eliminated all doubt that he was his step-son's father. "Now, public and private aren't the only reserved keywords that are used in encapsulation, but we'll only be working with them for now. The protected keyword won't be useful until we get into inheritance, which we'll be going into next week. But for now, just memorize the first two."_

_ The man looked at the clock. "Okay, we've only got a couple minutes left. Your assignment for the day is a simple one: make a class for the stats of a character in a video game. It should be a pretty easy endeavor. Then try and access those stats using a console application. Oh, and since it's the weekend, don't party too much!" he joked to the students. Then the bell rang. "Class dismissed. Enjoy your weekends!" he exclaimed cheerfully._

_ Marcos had to go into the lecture hall completely to avoid being trampled by a couple dozen university students. He wasn't sure that the professor noticed his presence until the man looked right at him. "So, are you just going to stand there like that or are you going to tell me whether I did good or not teaching the class?" the curly haired man asked, smiling widely._

_ "To be honest, I didn't understand a single thing of what you were teaching about," the long-haired man stated bluntly._

_ "That's why you shouldn't come here in the middle of the term," the professor stated good-naturedly, still smiling widely and pointing at him with a coffee mug in that hand while at the same time grabbing a group of files. Then he headed toward his office in the back of the room. "Come on in. It's obvious you've got something important to talk about, coming all the way from Uruguay."_

_ "You could tell where I'm originally from by my accent, huh?" the man asked._

_ "Oh, please, it's obvious by how you pronounce your Y's and Ll's," the man said, sitting down at his desk._

_ "Most people can't tell us from Argentineans," Marcos remarked as he sat down. He was really starting to like this guy._

_ "Oh, I've had plenty of friends from the Rioplatense area. You guys pronounce your Y's like the letter combination 'si' in the English word 'fusion', assuming you know English of course. Argentineans pronounce it like the 'sh' in 'ship'."_

_ "I actually live in the United States. I've lived there for about sixteen years, actually," the long-haired man stated._

_ "Oh, so you do know English," the professor said with a smile before drinking a cup of coffee. "I used to live there. Went to University there. Worst few years of my life, actually. Moved back for a couple years to get my masters in the late ninety's since I wanted to teach here and it was better then. Helped that I was staying with my brother in Oxnard, California."_

_ "That's a little far from Palo Alto, don't you think?" Marcos asked._

_ "Yeah, but gas prices were lower back then. Now they're $2.00 a gallon. What a rip-off," the large man said, almost joking. "So, whatcha here for?"_

_ "Well, it turns out that we have an ex-wife in common," Marcos said, getting straight to the point and causing the professor to spit out his coffee in the process. The curly-haired man went up to grab a towel. "Sorry about that."_

_ "No, I have to apologize. I should have treated Lorena a little better by not going out of town so much," the man replied, blotting up the coffee on his desk and trying to get it out of the papers he was grading. "Man, how am I going to explain this to my students when they get these back?"_

_ "Sorry, sorry," Marcos continued to apologize._

_ "No problem. You had no idea. So, what else is going on? I take it you wanted to talk to somebody about this, relieve your stress?" the man finished blotting up the papers and went over to get a fresh cup of coffee._

_ "A bit more than that. You see, we had a child. Then I lost custody to her when he turned out not to be mine," Marcos explained, getting a dumbfounded reaction from the professor. The man stood there for a couple seconds before speaking._

_ "And you think he might be mine?" he asked, not buying it._

_ "Well, yeah. You see, he was born about eight months after you guys divorced. I thought he was simply born a month early, but I guess that wasn't the case."_

_ The professor stirred his coffee and sat down again, not sure what to think of this. Marcos placed a photograph on the cluttered desk and slid it to him. "He's the splitting image of you, Antonio."_

_ Antonio Guevara picked up the photo of his son, looking at it with shock. "He… He looks just like one of my nephews."_

_ Marcos got up. "I'm afraid for him. During the last days of our marriage, his mother was slowly becoming more erratic. Please, have a DNA test done and get custody of him. The judge will be on your side. I'll even testify for you."_

_ Antonio nodded. "I… I have a son." He clenched his fist tight. "I have a son," he repeated, trying to make himself believe it. He couldn't believe that Lorena had hated him so much that she'd keep him from him. He turned toward the man that he had only met that day and one time previously with determination. "I'll do it. I'll fly to the United States for him."_

###

A/N: As if you didn't see those plot twists coming... Hehe. They were actually planned from the beginning of World Tournament, believe it or not. I wanted to reveal them a little later, but I just couldn't wait. At least this fic doesn't have a Kudzu plot like the other one… Ugh!

And as for Daemon… wait and see.


	11. The Scholar

Chapter 11: The Scholar

###

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon. Just the few OCs that are sprinkled throughout this story.

###

It was official; Hypnos didn't trust the majority of the Tamers living in the Shinjuku area. As for Keith, he knew that there was a possibility that the Watchmaker was simply using them, though Yamaki didn't take that suggestion seriously one bit. That meant that they were going to be closely monitoring the Tamers and that they only trusted Suzie, Ai and Mako, three that were far too young for the job, and then Jeri, who technically wasn't even a Tamer anymore since she didn't have Leomon.

_There's got to be a way of resurrecting that digimon by extracting the data from Impmon. Then again, only the sovereigns or digimon such as Anubimon would know what that entailed, _he thought to himself while eating some sushi alone at a local restaurant. He's always liked Japanese food, though he tended to spend his meals alone. He's had too many friendships broken by either their imperfections or death. _Then again, there could be Tamers that could arise over the next few weeks. Who knows?_

He pulled out a small, handheld device and pressed a button on it, causing the holographic projection to be disabled, revealing the device as a blue digivice with a red ring around the center. It wasn't public knowledge that he was a Tamer. Unfortunately, his partner was currently out of commission, so he wouldn't be useful unless he could somehow get his partner back. _Maybe Anubimon would know something about that too. He was the one that turned him back into an egg after…_

He didn't want to think about that time, that battle. Instead he turned his attention to the Tamers of Shinjuku that had duplicates in the real world now. Or were the ones in the digital world the duplicates? It wouldn't make sense for that to be the case.

He sat back and put a piece of sushi into his mouth. He still wished he was traveling with the old man through time and dimensions, unfortunately life hadn't been kind to him and he ended up stranded…

So here he was, doing something like what the old Watchmaker did in Mizuki's native reality. He was going to recruit another Tamer. Unfortunately, there was the question of who. He figured that the new Tamer would have to be someone over the age of eighteen, preferably. Either that or someone about to turn eighteen.

_Let's see, did any of the newer Tamers of Shinjuku have any older siblings that were in that age bracket? _He asked himself, pondering it over. Then he saw him. The heavy teen that he saw walk into the restaurant with a group of fellow jocks had to be Tadashi's older brother. Blond hair wasn't that common in Japan unless this guy dyed it or something.

He shifted his digivice back to its previous mode and used it to log onto the internet, particularly records involving Tadashi and his family. He got what he wanted. _Older Brother: Kurita._

Then he looked for any pictures of the blond man. Sure enough, he was the guy at that table. There was only the question of how to approach him and what to give him. _Let's see, since Tadashi has a lion for a partner, maybe I should continue with the theme. That would mean Elecmon, ViElecmon or Liollmon._ That left the other question… Maybe he should use one of his disguises…

He was already using one as it was. He wasn't even wearing a suit like he was supposed to, instead opting for a pair of jeans and a shirt. Not to mention, this wasn't what he looked like. He didn't even need glasses.

Of course, if anybody found out who he actually was, that would be a disaster. It was bad enough that the state department in the United States had to know about him. Then again, he made sure they didn't recruit him for any of their schemes.

He finished eating. He had to stop eating so much. Of course, it wasn't like it would actually hurt him. He got up and put his tray on the nearest trashcan before walking out the door. He had to go on a trip to the digital world. At least he would remember to mask his life-sign, unlike the Tamers.

###

The storm wasn't letting up. Of course, it had only been a few minutes since it started so they couldn't expect it to. Still, a sandstorm or whatever it was coming out of nowhere like this irked them. They needed to find shelter soon. It didn't help that Solarmon was still incapacitated.

"There's a building in the distance!" Ayaka shouted above the storm, hoping that the others heard her. The sandstorm was getting really grating and the only one who had any sort of eye protection was Yuji who had a pair of sunglasses on him.

They made their way down to the building, which turned out to be some sort of upside down pyramid, much like the one that Etemon used on the TV show. They found an entrance on the side and hoped that there weren't any Elvis-impersonating monkeys around to torment them. Walking inside, it was just another series of ruins with numerous pictographs on the wall as well as symbols in digi-code.

"Well, at least we have a place to stay until this stupid storm passes," Yuji commented as they walked inside. "It is a little dark, though."

"Coronamon?" Tadashi asked and the lion-like digimon caused his crystal to glow brightly, showing the insides of the ruins for him to see. "Wow, that's digi-code."

Taizou promptly pulled out a piece of paper. "It's not the syllabary," he remarked. "It doesn't correspond to the Kana like it should."

"So you can't read it?" Yuji asked, looking at his friend with disappointment. He was the smart one! "What a drag."

"Well, no," Taizou responded. "We'll probably have to wait until Solarmon wakes up to look at it. A shame."

"Oh well, at least we're out of that horrible storm," Miki remarked. "But now I need a shower!"

"Then again, we've been here in the digital world for a couple days. I think we all need showers," Tadashi commented.

"No kidding. Man, I need to wash my hair," Yuji added. "Too bad there's nothing like that in here. Stupid ruins!"

"Hey! These ruins are a view into the digital world's past," Taizou objected.

"Yeah, and the digital world's been around how long? About twenty years?" the long-haired boy shot back.

"For all we know, time here could have run faster at one point kind of like on the show," Taizou responded.

"Alright, prove it," Yuji replied, smiling deviously.

"These ruins imply a digital world that's been around for centuries when we know that digimon were created in the '80s. That means that there had to have been a time when the two worlds weren't in sync. Maybe there was some sort of ancient civilization that built this."

"You're absolutely right!" The team heard the enthusiastic voice of a yellow reptile standing further into the cave.

"An Agumon?" Tadashi asked, surprised. Though this Agumon was slightly different and had a graduation cap and gown on.

"Yes, Agumon Hakase at your service," the reptile greeted the boy. "I'm a scholar from the newly-founded University of Oppidum Septentrionale on an expedition to explore these ruins."

"Cool!" Taizou exclaimed, enthralled by the prospect.

"So, you learn about the history of the digital world? That's pretty neat!" Ayaka commented, smiling at the yellow lizard.

"And plus you get to travel. That's pretty awesome," Tadashi remarked.

"Lame!" The group turned around to glare at Yuji, who looked at them in confusion. "What? It's not like he's going to ever do anything with this information."

"But, don't you have a curiosity about how things were in the early digital world?" Taizou asked.

Yuji shook his head. "No, not really. I just want to go in, rescue Eddy, find our friends and get out."

"Well, it's not like we have anything else to do, even though this is going to be _so _boring," Miki remarked, agreeing to go along with the plan.

Yuji looked at the dark-haired girl, annoyed that he was defeated. "Okay, I'll come. Just don't expect me to enjoy myself."

###

"This pyramid belongs to one of the oldest cultures in the digital world," Agumon Hakase explained. "If you look at the inscriptions, they're actually in ancient digi-code instead of in the modern language. The ancient language used an alphabet instead of the modern syllabary. For instance, if transliterated, this forms the indecipherable phrase IMPERATORSYMANSKICLAVISDIMENSIONALISEST."

"So, are there any rooms in this thing that have anything other than a bunch of symbols we can't read?" Coronamon asked, bored out of his skull.

"Actually, there is. I was about to show you the tomb of the ancient king of digimon, Pharaohmon!" the yellow reptile exclaimed, leading the team into a new room. "Here we have it!"

"Whoa!" the group exclaimed. The room that they entered into had a golden casket in the middle along with numerous pictographs on the wall, detailing the reign of this ancient king.

"Wow, what is this?" Tadashi asked, gesturing toward the pictographs.

"These tell the story of the digital world. Once, there were only a few digimon in existence, but when they ended their lives after acquiring large amounts of data, their data was the basis for the digi-eggs of numerous other digimon. Eventually, there were digimon on every corner of the digital world. At one time, a group of holy digimon decided to create a city in the sky. These digimon included Pharoahmon, who expanded that sky city, and created a vast civilization in the northern area. Using the forces of numerous digimon such as Volcamon and PileVolcamon, he created a new area of the digital world that could be used for farming and agriculture. He even enlisted the help of numerous water digimon."

"Interesting," Taizou remarked.

"Are you kidding me, this whole history thing is incredibly boring," Yuji complained.

"I have to agree with Fabio here," Miki said, yawning.

"Well, here's the exciting part. On the surface of the digital world, the D-Reaper emerged and started to destroy everything in his path. In response, the digimon that created this section of the Digital World launched the sky city and Pharaohmon's domain even further into the sky, into the orbit of the Digital World in expectation of the D-Reaper. The D-Reaper barely touched this section of the digital world, the orbital world."

"So, that's how Takato's team could get lost and come back to the same place so easily. This isn't the whole digital world," Ayaka realized. "And the original digital world was destroyed, wasn't it?"

"Not quite. You see, much like in your world, when the D-Reaper was reverted back to its original form, everything in the digital world that was destroyed was returned back to normal except for the digimon. Let me show you something." Agumon gestured for the group to follow him even further into the pyramid.

"Oh, please, even more touring this stupid place?" Yuji asked, indignant as he followed the rest. "Dude, the storm's got to be over with."

"Yes, but this is actually pretty interesting. There's a lot I didn't know about my world," Commandramon told him.

"What? You too?" the long haired boy asked in surprise, making an annoyed face at his partner.

The group continued on down the steps further into the pyramid. Eventually, after a couple minutes, they found light at the end of the tunnel. Stepping into the light, they saw something they didn't expect.

"Beautiful!" Ayaka and Salamon exclaimed, seeing the blue and green globe beneath them. Clouds covered the planet below and it looked like there were several huge landmasses beneath those clouds. However, on the dark side of the world, there wasn't light from any cities like one would expect from Earth, showing that the vast majority of the world was uninhabited.

"No way," Tadashi said. "Takato never mentioned this."

"That's because the planetary digital world was completely encompassed by the D-Reaper while your friends were here," Agumon explained, looking downward. "In fact, I was amazed upon seeing this, myself. Personally, I think that once the digimon all find out about this, a mass colonization effort will be made."

"Still, that's pretty cool," Miki said, looking downward.

"You know, prior to the orbital digital world coming up here, there had never been any mention of data-streams or the globe in the sky in the records," Agumon added. "I wouldn't be surprised if they've only been noticed because of our location. I'm sure that since the globe in the sky seems smaller the farther away from it you go, it's probably invisible from the planet. In fact, that theory is explained by how data-streams are pretty much non-existent in the sovereign's level."

"And yet the D-Reaper didn't let anybody go anywhere near it…" Tadashi mumbled to himself looking over the railing of the bridge they were on. "So, where do these walkways go?"  
"I don't know," Agumon admitted. "I have a theory that some of them may lead to the Sovereigns' level or even the catacombs of Oppidum Septentrionale but I haven't had a chance to explore them as of yet."

Yuji looked over at the catwalks that lead throughout the bottom of the various areas of the orbital digital world and thought about it. "Maybe if we kept walking until we reached Oppidum Septentrionale we could avoid the storms," he suggested to the rest of the group.

"Oppidum Septentrionale is a little over twenty kilometers from here," Agumon told the group, unsure about walking all that way. "I'm not sure if that's a good idea."

"Oh, sure it is!" the long-haired boy exclaimed, moving forward. "Plus, this way we can avoid whatever wild digimon are on the surface. Come on, it's a great idea. Better than boring tomb-raiding. I mean, do I look like Lara Croft?" Yuji chuckled as he kept on walking.

"What do you guys think?" Tadashi asked the rest of the group, liking the idea somewhat.

"Sure, why not. As long as we don't get lost under here," Taizou said before looking down at the planet below once again. It was definitely a long way down. He continued on with Solarmon in his arms.

###

It was a peaceful day in the Northern Village of Beginnings that Oppidum Septentrionale surrounded. The various eggs and baby digimon that were around were looking quite content and the few digimon that were caring for them, namely the Elecmon and Swanmon, were having an easygoing time despite being busy. Because of that, they didn't seem to notice the television just appear out of nowhere until it lit up and a certain blond walked out, holding his D-Arc in front of him with his right hand.

"Let's see," he mumbled to himself while he looked at his digivice's settings. "My digivice signal's still masked and the biofield scrambler's still intact. It looks like I'm good to go." He then scanned the area for the digimon he was looking for, moving from egg to egg and examining them with the D-Arc using a special program that he designed.

When he reached his tenth egg, he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around. "Oh, hey, Anubimon. What's up?" he asked, looking at the Egyptian god-lookalike that was behind him.

"I'm just curious as to what you're doing," the dog said, not sure about what was happening.

"Well, I'm trying to find a suitable partner digimon for someone in the real world, if that's alright with you," the blond man replied, smiling at the digimon in front of him and hoping he doesn't get on his case for that. As it was, he was getting away with a lot. His luck would have to run out sometime.

Anubimon raised an eyebrow. "That's acceptable. It turns out there's talk that a new force has arrived in the digital world from the real world."

"I heard. Hypnos detected them and, well, they're not too impressed," Keith said, turning toward the next egg and scanning it. "So, I take it you actually want me to take one of these to the real world?"

"We do. We're hoping to enlist some Tamers as well while we're at it. Do you know of any that would be willing to help us against the army to the south of us?" Anubimon was almost pleading, or at least that was what it would have seemed like had he been showing much emotion.

"Unfortunately, I don't know of anyone that could help," Keith explained, hating that there wasn't anything he could really do. "Most of the Tamers I know are under eighteen and, because of that, can't go to the digital world. There are other teams out there, but I'm not sure if their governments would be willing to give them up."

"How about you?" the dog-like digimon asked. "Where is your partner, for instance?"

"That's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about," Keith said before pulling out his digivice and pressing a few buttons on its holographic screen. He caused a white egg with red spots to materialize in front of him. "He won't hatch."

Anubimon nodded, kneeling down and picking it up, before closing his eyes and scanning the digivice with his powers. "Hmm… there are a few files that are either damaged or incomplete. Strange…"

"Can you do anything about it?" the blond asked, his eyes wide with sorrow for his partner.

"I can try. Let's see, this digi-egg will hatch into Jyaromon, so I might need to search for another egg of its type." The dog moved through the village while Keith followed. The blond proceeded to scan the various digivices along the way as he followed the god-like digimon through the area. The digimon then proceeded to stop by an egg that was almost identical to the one he had in his hands and knelt down.

"Let's see, what I'll have to do is copy the damaged files from this egg and replace the ones in your egg with them," Anubimon explained. "I'll have to warn you, though, that some of the files involved had to do with memory, so there's a chance your partner won't remember you when he revives. This also means you may have to reach your digivolutions again the hard way."

Keith nodded, sad that that would be the case. At least that meant that his partner would be whole again. "What about the digivolution line? Will it be the same one I had before this happened?"

"Yes, it should be since that data is held in your digivice."

Keith nodded.

"Now, where were we?" Anubimon asked. "Oh yes, the partner for that new Tamer you mentioned in the real world. I hope that your plan will help this digimon lead a more peaceful life than if he would have to deal with the invasion."

"So, what about Dorbickmon? Is he still acting up?" Keith asked as Anubimon handed him his egg and then proceeded to move forward toward another set of eggs.

"It turns out that he has actually pulled his forces back to prepare for the army of Tamers that is currently forming in the central digital world," the god-like digimon explained, a hint of worry in his voice. "Since that's happening, the situation must be dire. The other Tamer in the digital world has been amassing an army to take on Dorbickmon and he has recently combined that army with the army of Tamers run by the Digimon Queen."

"She stole Rika's title. What a witch." Anubimon looked at the blond-haired American in front of him. Keith just looked at the god-like digimon with a confused expression. "Hey, I don't cuss. There's nothing wrong with that."

"No there isn't. I actually appreciate your use of discretion around the children. Anyway, here's your egg."

"So, you're actually willing to let me take it without anything else?" the blond asked.

"You helped us save our world, did you not?" the dog-like digimon asked in a tired expression.

"By the way, has Eduardo showed up yet?" the blond asked.

"He has. However, Daemon would like to keep him here so that he can help in the effort against the army to the south," the god explained.

"I was considering taking him with me, but that would cause suspicion, especially if I leave him at his father's house." The blond scratched his chin. He didn't know how to do this, even though he considered using a different disguise.

"Besides, having him here is part of the plan," Keith turned around to see the old Watchmaker, completely catching him by surprise.

"You! What… what are you doing here?" the blond asked, shocked that the old man would show up.

"I'm watching over everyone. Eduardo Guevara is part of the team that I've chosen. He must remain here if everything is to go as planned," the old man explained. His clock-like partner was behind him. "Besides, this isn't your story, anyway. You're looking pretty good for a man your age, by the way."

"Thanks. By the way, I don't have any resentment against you for accidently stranding me in case you're wondering," the blond said as the old man turned away.

"That is good to know. You know, that was one of my biggest regrets, leaving you back there. I should have went back to rescue you, even if it had been a year later," the old man explained. "So, how is everything? Bored yet?"

"Are you kidding? What's the alternative?" Keith asked with a chuckle.

The Watchmaker smiled. "Anyway, I have to get going. I just didn't want you screwing up and I thought I'd say hi, seeing as you're still alive and all."

Keith nodded at the old man. He was glad that the geezer was still alive and kicking.

###

"Great, how much farther do we have to go?" Yuji complained. The group had been walking for hours already.

"Hey, you're the one who wanted to go this way," Taizou shot back.

"Yeah, but I didn't think that it would take that long for your partner to recover," the long-haired boy remarked.

"It's not like we can fly anyway," Tadashi commented.

"Yeah, in case you haven't noticed, we're directly under the landmass now," Ayaka added, indicating how they were on a hanging bridge right underneath the floating continent.

"Oh, crap, it looks like we're going to have to make another jump," Yuji complained, pointing at a spot where the bridge had given out and was hanging downward. The small break was about a meter across and there weren't any rails there either. The only thing below them was the planet itself.

The long-haired boy backed up a few feet and leapt across, landing on his feet. Following him was his partner and then Ayaka, who had to carry Salamon.

Tadashi attempted a jump but almost missed, having to be pulled up by Yuji and Ayaka. The blond found himself panting heavily as his partner jumped across. That was a close one. Then Miki and Syakomon soared across gracefully. And finally Taizou and Solarmon made it across, barely followed by Agumon.

"That wasn't my cup of tea," Tadashi remarked, still panting.

"Yeah, it didn't help that you're a bit heavy to lift, man," Yuji commented, inciting a glare from the blond boy as well as Ayaka. "Hey, it's true."

"And you wonder why we haven't completely patched up our friendship," Tadashi mumbled under his breath.

"Hey, guys, look!" Coronamon yelled out, pointing to an area past the stairs that they were about to go down. It turned out there were broken spots of the bridge up and down the area.

"What? Some of those chasms look larger than the one we just crossed," Tadashi complained.

"Somehow I knew this was a bad idea," Taizou mumbled, irritated. "We just had to listen to Yuji for once."

"Dude, I got an idea that we could use, though," Yuji told the group. "I got you guys into this mess and I'm going to get you out."

"Are you kidding me?" Miki asked angrily, putting her palms on her waist. "There's no way we're going along with another one of your stupid plans again. In case you haven't noticed, there's a centimeter between us and falling to our deaths on the planet below us and that's _if _we don't burn up in its atmosphere or something."

"Come on, just listen to me for a second," Yuji begged the group. "What we should do is have Commandramon digivolve to Sealsdramon and have him carry us across one by one."

"Are you sure that his weight might not just collapse another section of these catwalks," Taizou asked, not buying it.

"Okay, have it your way. Just don't be surprised if the porker ends up falling to the planet," Yuji responded, ticking off Tadashi.

"What did you just call me?" the blond asked, glaring holes in the other boy.

"You heard me… fatso," the long-haired boy replied with a smile, pressing the blond's berserk button.

"Okay, that's it! I'm not even that heavy, you jerk!" Tadashi yelled, causing Yuji to run, jumping across each of the holes in the bridge, while the blond chased after him, even across the wide ones. After the two made their way past each of the holes, Tadashi was exhausted, or at least would have been if the digital world didn't have a way of giving the boy infinite stamina as long as he didn't pay attention to it.

After a few seconds of watching with astonishment, the other kids and their digimon then proceeded to make their way past the holes themselves, even with the aforementioned issues. It was almost as if, as long as they didn't think about their fears, they could get across the catwalk with ease.

###

Keith made it back to the real world shortly after his conversation with the old Watchmaker and made his way through the city. He knew that he wouldn't be able to use the portal program that he had gotten from off a defunct D-3 while traveling with the old man all that time ago much since eventually Hypnos would probably notice the anomaly. Still, it sounded like a good idea at the time anyway.

He hoped that everything would work according to his current plan. Still, since the old man was involved, that meant that his theory about the Tamers in the digital world being temporal duplicates was pretty much confirmed, despite Yamaki not taking them at face value or believing that the Watchmaker even existed.

The blond man pressed a few buttons on his disguised digivice's screen and then his appearance changed into that of a slightly older, black-haired Asian man with sunglasses and a black suit. Then he walked out of the bathroom, hoping that nobody would notice the disappearance of a blond European man. He also hoped that he could improve his accent enough to be confused for a native, something he hadn't been able to do yet.

He made his way through the streets until he reached the correct apartment building and then went up the elevator to the correct floor. While he was going up the elevator, he noticed the projection flicker briefly. _That thing better not give out, _he thought. He kept on walking through the hallway until he reached the correct door and then he knocked.

The door opened, revealing Tadashi, who gave the man a look. "Who are you?" he asked.

The man spoke in as good of Japanese as he could muster. As it was, his goal when speaking was always to avoid making mistakes. Still, he couldn't help it sometimes. "My name is Hideaki Nakamura and I work for Hypnos. Is Kurita at home?" Keith asked, succeeding in his best accent yet.

"Uh, yeah, why do you want to talk to him?" the blond boy asked.

"That is classified," the Japanese-looking man responded. He knew that this version of Tadashi was still annoyed that he couldn't get to the digital world and that he was constantly searching for the Watchmaker in vain, so he felt that he shouldn't get on his bad side. As it was, what he was planning would put him on the boy's bad side anyway, if the boy actually knew who he was.

Turning around, Tadashi moved toward the inside of the apartment. "Kurita, it's for you!"

A few seconds later, the hologram around Keith flickered for a second. _Crap, not again, _he thought. At least he wasn't in his underwear in public like that one time several decades before. Kurita opened up and walked out of the apartment as the disguised American looked up at him. The large blond was a bit taller than he was. Keith looked up at him and spoke.

"I would suggest closing that door," the disguised man said and the heavy man did so.

"Okay, so what's up?" the blond asked.

"I come from Hypnos with a proposition for you. We have a need for more Tamers and you're the one candidate that we could all agree on," Keith explained, lying through his teeth.

"Okay, so, you're going to give me a partner or something?" Kurita asked, curious and wary.

"Yes, exactly," the disguised man said, holding out a device that appeared as some sort of heavy duty palm pilot to Kurita. After a few buttons, he brought up a white digi-egg with bronze stripes across it. "This is yours."

The large blond man couldn't believe it. He was about to become a Tamer. He was smiling widely when he took the egg. "I would suggest hiding that."

"Okay, that's fine," Kurita said. "My parents wouldn't like me having a digimon anyway. Of course, I just turned eighteen, so I could just move out if they're too upset about it."

"True. However, I'm going to have to ask you to keep this meeting a secret to everyone, including Yamaki when you go to meet him. If he asks where you found your partner, just say that you found the egg randomly."

The large man felt really uncomfortable. _Didn't this guy just say that it was part of Hypnos's plans that I get a partner?_ He asked himself, looking at the digi-egg. When he looked up, the man was gone. He tried to think of a way to get the egg somewhere safe quickly, but he didn't know exactly how.

Then he realized that there was another way to do this. He proceeded to leave the egg on the ground and go inside, hoping that nobody would pick it up. Then he went and grabbed a jacket before coming out and putting the egg inside. Finally, he went back in the apartment and headed straight to his room.

Upon shutting his door, he pulled the egg out, rubbing it in hopes that it would hatch soon. After a couple minutes, a series of cracks started to appear across the surface of the egg before it hatched into its Baby form of Popomon. He didn't trust that man and he was probably going to tell Yamaki about him, but that didn't mean that he would give up his partner so easily.

###

Keith reached the bottom level of the apartment building when the holographic projector on his digivice failed. Thankfully, he was at least wearing jeans and a grey t-shirt, bland enough to prevent anybody from noticing him. After picking up some fast food he headed straight home and, upon entering into the apartment, took off his shirt. He fed Jyaromon a couple burgers he had gotten. One thing was for sure, this digimon was a big eater.

The man sat down in his recliner and watched a little television, trying to think of his next step in finding new Tamers that Hypnos would be able to trust.

_Let's see, other than Kurita, there are Jaarin and Rinchei. I could give them partners, or at least one of them, though that might tip Janyu off. Hmm…_

He thought for a while, while his partner ate and then slept. The small, red, bat-eared head just snuggled in his partner's lap.

At least that day was over. He just hoped that he could train his partner back up to the rookie level and soon. The bioemergences were getting stronger.

###

"So, this is the nearest exit to Oppidum Septentrionale. Let's go through it," Yuji said, receiving the glares of the others.

"There's an entrance that leads straight into the city," Tadashi objected.

"Yeah? Look at the digivice, man. If you look at the map of these trails, the entrance into the city is on the far side of it from us. It would be easier to get in through here, not to mention a lot quicker." The long-haired boy just ran up the steps into the exit and the blond followed.

"Hey, wait up. I still haven't forgiven you for calling me fat, you know?" Tadashi called out as the others reached where they were.

"They're going up already?" Taizou asked as he followed the two along with his partner who was still resting in his arms.

"Boys…" Miki mumbled, following the others with Ayaka and their partners behind along with Agumon Hakase.

Tadashi and Yuji made it up to the surface without incident. It was in the middle of the day and the grass beneath their feet was a nice shade of green. There also appeared to be trees in the distance as well as the white walls of the nearby city. The globe in the sky seemed to be quite a bit more distant than when they first landed in the digital world.

Unfortunately, that was about the time when everything went down the tubes.

"Spider Shooter!" The duo and their partners heard, running out of the way of the maroon-colored energy blast.

"What the heck was that? Some wild digimon already here?" Yuji asked, irritated.

Then they saw them. There was a rather muscular boy of European decent in front of them. Muscular, broad-shouldered and looking like a linebacker on a football team. The brown-haired boy was wearing a white shirt and grey pants as well as a backpack. He was definitely more prepared for the digital world than the others.

And, somehow, he spoke fluent, accent-free Japanese. "Tadashi Nakabayashi , you have to come with me on behalf of the Digimon Queen."

"What?" the blond asked, confused that she could have gotten to them so quickly.

"Come with me or your friends will be killed," he said. Tadashi looked into the teen's eyes. He had a vacant look that was similar to the one that Taizou sported while his mind was being invaded by the Digimon Queen.

"Are you kidding me, there's no way I'm giving up Tadashi to you, you dirtbag!" Yuji yelled out. "Digivolution activate!"

"Commandramon digivolve to… Sealsdramon!"

Tadashi realized he had to do the same thing. "Digivolution activate!" he shouted as he held his digivice out.

"Coronamon digivolve to… Firamon!"

"What's happening?" Miki asked.

"This guy wants Tadashi for some reason. He works for the Digimon Queen," Yuji informed the rest of the group, trembling with the realization that they were now fighting an Ultimate and not some weak Ultimate like earlier that week in the real world. This one was one that was a hard time for two Ultimates on the second Digimon movie.

Ayaka, Miki and Taizou knew what that meant. Unfortunately, the brown-haired boy realized his partner was in no position to fight. He needed to find a way to help anyway.

"Digivolution Activate!" Miki and Ayaka both shouted out, holding out their digivices toward their digimon.

"Salamon digivolve to… D'Arcmon!"

"Syakomon digivolve to… Ranamon!"

The four Champion levels readied themselves.

"What is going on?" Agumon asked as he got out of the passageway.

"This guy attacked as soon as Tadashi and Yuji got up here," Taizou told the digimon, fuming because his partner couldn't do anything. This was going to be a far more difficult battle than any that had come between them and the brown-haired boy couldn't do anything about it.

###

A/N: Well, that was a good chapter. I wrote most of it on the way to Vegas. Hehe. Road trips do give you plenty of time to do stuff, don't they?

And another note: The Planetary and Orbital Worlds: Basically, this is a small theory that I have going through my head as to why the Digital World in Tamers is so much different from that in the other series. Hopefully it matches the history provided in the show well and makes sense. It would also explain why Takato's team ended up in the same spot so often (the area they were in was only a small part of the actual world).

Anyway, I don't want to spoil the next chapter. If you like the story, please review. Even if you don't like it, please review. I like constructive criticism, though if you flame me, I'll just laugh it off.


	12. Inferno

Chapter 12: Inferno

###

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, just the few OCs scattered throughout this fic.

###

Ed didn't know what to think when he came across the large, robed, demonic-looking digimon at the bridge, but here he was, enjoying his hospitality. The chubby teen knew there had to be something up, though. Such a digimon couldn't possibly be good. There was a reason why he was classified as an evil digimon on his card, though for some reason Bandai screwed up the name, calling him Creepymon instead of Daemon, which according to Ed was totally lame.

The robed digimon had organized a grand feast for the Digimon Tamer and a large number of his counsel. For some reason, the chubby black-haired boy expected the Mega digimon to be a sort of dictator and not have a counsel. Then again, Stalin probably had one while he was ruling the Soviet Union. There had to be a way he kept everything straight without micromanaging.

"So, where do you hail from, Ed," the robed digimon inquired of the black-haired boy, seemingly in good cheer. There was no doubt about it, Ed didn't trust him. Still, he would try to respect him, lest he get on his bad side.

"Well, I'm from a country in the real world called the United States. That was where I was born at least," Ed responded in between bites of fruit.

"United States… That's not what I call a very colorful name, but to each his own."

"How many humans inhabit that country," Anubimon asked. It had been a few hours since his meeting with Keith Jackson and he felt a little guilty about not letting the blond man take the boy home.

"Uh, about 300 million, I guess," Ed replied.

"It sounds quite large," MachGaogamon said, ripping off a piece of a T-bone steak with his teeth. "Are there many Tamers where you're from?"

"To be honest, I don't know," the chubby boy responded after finishing off a piece of fruit that for some reason tasted like cooked meat. "I mean, I would assume that there are a number of other Tamers in the States but I haven't met any of them. I haven't lived there for about six months, though, so there might be more now."  
"Hmm… Interesting. Are there many countries?" Daemon asked, eating a piece of fruit by stuffing it under his crimson hood.

"I don't know how many, but there are a lot. I guess over a hundred," Ed replied, not having really thought about it that much. "There are seven continents and on most of those, there are quite a few countries each. The main exceptions are Australia and Antarctica, which either contain only one country or don't have anybody living there permanently."

The digimon at the table were all astonished. "Your world is far vaster than I imagined," Daemon commented, wiping his face with a napkin.

Ed chuckled nervously. For all he knew, this digimon was going to use this information against his world. He didn't want that.

###

As soon as the champions had digivolved, they moved forward to attack. "According to my Scouter Monoeye, the main weak spot on this digimon is the cable that forms the neck," Sealsdramon told the rest of the group before pulling out a pair of knives.

"Okay, everybody, attack there!" Tadashi told the group before looking at his digivice for information. However, he was beaten to the punch by Ayaka in giving the other the information on the Tamer in front of them.

"His name is Gunter Kaufmann, or at least that how I guess his name is pronounced. I'm not sure how to pronounce the U with two dots above it." The girl looked over at Tadashi, who realized something.

"The guy's German. Yeah, it's pronounced like the I in machine but with your lips really round. I have an uncle in Germany named Günter." He scratched his chin.

"Wow, and I thought English vowels were bad," the girl commented wryly.

"The rest of your pronunciation's pretty good, though," Tadashi complimented her.

The digimon moved forward, ready to strike and they did.

"La Pucelle!" D'Arcmon yelled, striking with her sword.

"Fira Bomb!" (check attack name) Firamon yelled, shooting an energy blast with the crystal on his head at the neck of the large, insectoid digimon.

"Death Behind!" Sealsdramon shouted, tossing one of his knives at Infermon's neck.

"Dark Vapor!" Ranamon yelled, shooting a cloud of noxious black fluid at the enemy digimon.

When all the dust settled from the group of attacks, the group was disturbed to see that there wasn't a single scratch on Infermon.

Gunter grinned at the sight of these Tamers failing. He knew that he had them right where he wanted. He didn't want this battle to end so quickly, though, so he decided to play around with them, getting rid of them one at a time. The truth was that when the Digimon Queen had her partner brainwash him, she pulled out the worst desires from inside of him and sealed away his best traits such as self-control and kindness so that he was the twisted husk of the man he once was.

"Let's see, who should be defeated first?" he asked himself, grinning maliciously. He pulled out a small, six-sided die and thought about it, mumbling to himself. "One or two, blondie, three or four, the dark-haired girl, five or six, Fabio."

"Why the heck does everybody have to call me Fabio?" Yuji asked in contempt. "Do I look like the kind of guy who would be on covers of crappy romance novels with hot chicks?" Then he thought positively about it. "Wait, does that mean I'm hot too?"

"I wouldn't go that far," Miki responded, narrowing her eyes at the nutjob in front of them.

The brown-haired German tossed his dice. This was just like one of those old table-top RPGs that he plays every so often, though instead of deciding his attack power, it was deciding who he would attack. And it landed on the number four.

"Infermon! Attack the blonde girl's partner!" he yelled out, watching as his partner turned his head.

"Network Grenade!" It yelled, charging at D'Arcmon while in his cocoon form, who promptly dodged, only to have to evade a second attack.

Ayaka had already pulled out her deck to defeat this enemy digimon. "Digi-modify, Speed Activate!" she yelled, slashing the card and watched as D'Arcmon flew before she was right behind her enemy. At the same time, Sealsdramon, Ranamon and Firamon were preparing attacks. Their Tamers had each slid cards to increase their attack power against this enemy and so the digimon were a bit better prepared this time, each striking with their attacks.

"La Pucelle!" D'Arcmon yelled just as she stabbed Infermon in the neck with her sword.

"Death Behind!" Sealsdramon yelled, shooting a knife at the enemy.

"Flame Dive!" Firamon shouted, dive-bombing the enemy like a meteor.

"Dark Vapor!" Ranamon called, unleashing large amounts of black acid.

The attacks actually seemed to do a little damage this time, but nowhere near enough. Infermon realized that D'Arcmon was on his back, attempting to destroy his neck, so he flew her off and unleashed a Spider Shooter attack.

D'Arcmon thought about her partner as she saw the red orb of power head straight for her and how she had failed both her and Tadashi. She knew she was the first line of defense against the boy's enslavement, no, their enslavement to the Digimon Queen, but she still felt as if she had failed everyone there.

Then the attack struck and she was knocked out cold.

###

It felt good taking a bath for the first time in days. Okay, he would actually take showers more often than not, but still, it was nice to actually relax a little bit.

He sunk himself into the pool, enjoying the warm water of the public bath area as he did so. Apparently Daemon's group had gotten info on how humans bathe from a Jijimon and Babamon who had met a group of Japanese kids and felt that humans were fine with bathing together as long as they were separated by gender. That didn't apply to Ed, since he wasn't anywhere near comfortable with that concept having been raised in a culture where people almost always bathed alone, but since there was nobody there, he could enjoy himself.

Or at least there was almost nobody. Prokyomon was swimming on the opposite side of the bath from him and splashing. "What are you doing?" Ed asked, grinning at the digimon.

"Oh, nothing, just having fun. I haven't been in water before so this is different. I don't know about how it feels on my skin, though, but at least it's refreshing."

Ed then did something. He created the biggest splash he could and caused the digimon to hit his back against the other end of the pool before jumping out and shaking the water off of him. "What was that for?"

"Oh, nothing. I just thought I'd mess with you," Ed remarked, grinning slightly.

"Yeah?" The digimon asked before jumping up in the air. "Cannonball!"

The resulting splash caused a large amount of water to end up on the ground around the two partners and for Ed's face to be covered in water.

"Please behave yourselves in there!" Ed heard from the other side of the door to the bath. "I don't want to clean up any messes, young men!"

"Okay, don't worry about it! Everything's alright!" the chubby boy called out to the pool cleaner.

Prokyomon floated to next to Ed. "You started it," he teased.

"Hey, you were the one splashing around earlier," Ed objected, pulling his partner next to him and giving the digimon a noogie. He hadn't had this much fun in a long time.

###

When D'Arcmon fell down from the sky and devolved, she was in a spot that her Tamer couldn't reach, causing Ayaka to worry.

Taizou watched the battle as well, wishing he could do something to help. The buzz-haired boy grimaced at the sight of the various digimon fighting against Infermon. There was no way that they were going to win with only three Champions against one very powerful Ultimate.

He also wondered about something else: Gunter Kaufmann was speaking native-level Japanese, something that was nigh-impossible for foreigners to achieve since the language was so different from European languages such as English and German in areas such as vocabulary, grammatical structure and syntax. He half-expected the German teen to make a mistake every other word but it wasn't happening.

Then he remembered how his meeting with the Digimon Queen was entirely in Japanese despite how she was from France or something. And she, for some reason, retained the semblance of a foreign accent. Then again, it could have just indicated how vain the girl was. Maybe the girl's partner somehow extracted the information on the Japanese language from Taizou's mind when he infiltrated it.

Taizou simply gritted his teeth at that one.

Then there was the question of what he was doing here. He had to do something to help in the battle. D'Arcmon was out while Sealsdramon and Ranamon were getting clobbered by the enemy. However, there was something else going on. He noticed that Infermon was practically ignoring Firamon. _Of course, the Queen is after Tadashi, so maybe she'll go after him last,_ the brown-haired boy thought. Immediately, he started forming a strategy in his head.

"Tadashi!" he called out for his blond friend.

"Yeah, what is it?" he asked, distracted by the battle.

"Have Firamon hold back. Yuji and Miki, try increasing your partners' attack power as much as possible."

Tadashi looked at his friend with an expression of disapproval. "What? Why should I have my partner hold back?"

"Simple, because your partner's the only one that hasn't been attacked by this guy and because of that, he has the highest stamina. If you hold him back and have the others wear Infermon down until they're taken out, you'll have a higher chance of winning against this guy." Taizou hoped that his explanation made sense. However, Tadashi didn't seem to get it.

"No, there's no way I'm going to do that," the blond replied.

Taizou was aghast. "Come on, man, I'm trying to help you out!"

"Yeah, and why should I listen to your advice. You're not in the battle." Tadashi wasn't going to budge. His partner _was _going to fight.

"Come on, man, think about it. You have to be practical. He's not going to attack you." The brown-haired boy felt as if he was getting nowhere.

Tadashi thought about it, however. He didn't agree with Taizou, but the brown-haired boy's observations were true. The digimon they were up against wasn't attacking his partner.

So, he pulled out his digivice and spoke into it at his partner using one of the upgrades that was recently installed. "Firamon, get close and attack any weak points. He won't attack you!"

Taizou was glad that he was able to get the blond to change tactics somewhat, even if he didn't exactly listen to his advice. He just hoped that this battle was won and not lost. He knew the consequences and didn't like them.

Tadashi felt he had to move forward. He didn't want to lose this battle. No, he couldn't lose it, wouldn't lose it. He was going to win and that was final.

He refused to lose hope.

###

Gunter was observing the battle from behind Infermon. He realized that the digimon would eventually run out of stamina if he wasn't careful. Still, he would enjoy himself. He was having too much fun toying with these guys in front of him. For once he was even smiling.

The three opponents he was going up again decided to unleash another joint attack. Ranamon rode Firamon while Sealsdramon flew using the Hyper Wing card. The three digimon attempted to strike at the inside of Infermon's mouth. However, the trio of attacks was merely absorbed by the ball of energy that the digimon had been forming inside of his mouth.

"Infermon, attack Sealsdramon!" the burly German yelled out and, lo and behold, the giant bug launched his attack at the assassin, causing him to be thrown back towards the other team.

"Sealsdramon!" Yuji called out, frightened by his partner. At least the assassin was somewhere safer than where the knocked out Salamon was. Still, as soon as Yuji ran up to him, the digimon devolved.

"He's way too strong," Commandramon remarked, struggling to get up. "The only way we could possibly defeat this guy is if one of us reached Ultimate."

Yuji realized that wasn't all that probable. For some reason Blue Cards weren't working and the Digignomes weren't giving them out for that reason. The only other method was by use of crest programs, but he didn't even know what any of their crests were.

His hope was gone.  
###

Ed got out of the bath after drying off and putting on a robe that the digimon had provided. He walked toward his room where he found a Wisemon waiting. The digimon was looking out his bedroom window when the black-haired boy entered, but he turned around as soon as he shut the door.

"Eduardo, there is something we must tell you," the robed digimon said.

"What is it?" Ed asked, wary.

"A few minutes ago, a number of Daemon's spies spotted the Digimon Queen's armies. They are merely a few hours away. We have no idea how they've moved so fast but we have to get you out of here."

The American was astounded. "Wait, you mean… But I just got here!"

"We know. We're sorry that this has to happen. We found a series of passages that go underneath the digital world and we're going to take you to the Sovereigns' level where it's safest."

Ed didn't know how to take that. He didn't like the idea of going even deeper into the digital world since that meant that it would be even harder for his father to get to him. Then again, his father would want him to be safe even if his chances of getting home were far less.

The black-haired boy made his decision. "Okay, I'll go if that means that I'll be safe," he said with conviction.

Wisemon nodded. "Okay, now get ready. I'll wait here."

Ed was startled by that. "Couldn't you wait outside the door?" he asked, not wanting the digimon in his room while he was getting dressed.

"Okay, I'll do that. I forgot that humans need privacy. Digimon have no such desire." The robed digimon walked out of the room and shut the door behind him.

"So, we have to leave, _again?_" Prokyomon asked as Ed took off his robe, facing away from his partner.

"Sounds like it. Then again, we wouldn't want that girl attacking us in the middle of the night, would we?" Ed asked while putting on his boxers before reaching for his shirt.

Prokyomon was seriously down. "Oh, man, I was hoping to stay here a little longer."

"You and me both," the black-haired boy responded, putting on his pants and reaching for his shoes. "I wanted to stay here until my dad got here from the real world."

Ed sat on his desk, getting ready to put on his shoes and socks. He glanced over at his computer case and wished he at least had enough time to do something like draw a picture on the notebook he has in it or something.

_Oh well,_ he thought, putting on his shoes. _Not very many things last forever, do they?_

He got up and headed out the door. "Okay, where to?" the black-haired boy asked.

"We're going to be going with Daemon to the departure point and then you're going to take a flying digimon to the sovereign level," Wisemon explained. "There's also a team of Tamers that hasn't been brainwashed that's currently fighting Infermon. We're hoping that they win and if they do, we'll send them after you."

Ed was surprised at that one. "There's a group of Tamers in the digital world that's fighting Infermon? How come I haven't detected them yet?" he asked. He pulled out his digivice and checked their location, not seeing them. He did, however, find six digimon signatures.

There were two Champions and three Rookies along with the one Ultimate. The odds didn't look good, especially if Infermon managed to take on an entire forest worth of digimon. Then again, he heard that Infermon simply ran away from them as quickly as he could.

Still, he worried that this other team of Tamers wouldn't survive. Maybe one of them would reach Ultimate. Gunter did it somehow, even though the chubby boy had no idea how.

He clenched his fist, hoping that they would win.

###

It was down to the two of them. Ranamon realized that she wouldn't be attacked as long as she was on Firamon's back. "Okay, honey, we're going to have to take this guy on, just the two of us."

"Yeah, I realize that," Firamon spoke. "Unleash an attack of ink against this guy. My fire attacks should make that a pretty lethal combination. Make it big!"

"Gladly. Dark Vapor!" she yelled, unleashing as much ink against the enemy digimon as possible so that Infermon's head was practically covered in the stuff. Then Firamon's jewel started to glow bright orange.

"Fira Bomb!" he yelled, unleashing a large fireball at the enemy, causing Infermon to burst into flames.

Gunter had already guessed what his enemies were planning, so he had a modify card lined up. "Digi-Modify! Shellmon's Hydro Cannon activate!" he yelled, sliding the card through his purple digivice with a red ring. The large virus shot the attack against the ground, causing the water to bounce back upwards, getting rid of the majority of the flames and ink.

The German was getting bored and irritated. It was getting obvious that hitting Ranamon and leaving Firamon for last was just going to take too long.

"Infermon Attack!" he yelled out and the virus aimed and fired.

"Spider Shooter!" Infermon yelled out. The attack came suddenly and shockingly, engulfing both Ranamon and Firamon. The two digimon fell on the ground in front of Tadashi and Miki.

Gunter smiled widely. This was easier than he thought it would be. He had Tadashi almost ready for his mistress. And so he walked toward the group as Tadashi fell down in front of his partner, grinning as he neared the blond.

Tadashi couldn't believe it. They had lost. There was no way that he would be able to find Takato's team. He wanted so badly to believe that he had as much potential as the boy that helped defeat the Devas and the D-Reaper.

"No, don't give up," Firamon told his partner, trying to move. Orange feathers from his wings fluttered through the air around the blond boy. "Remember what we need to do?"

Tadashi nodded. He wanted to find Eduardo and then find Takato and the others. He remembered that even as Gunter neared him. The tall German lifted the blond by his yellow shirt. Tadashi had a look of defiance on his face, even as Gunter grinned.

There was no way he was giving up while there was a possibility. He had hope that he would see his friends again and he would hold onto that hope even if he died right here or lost his mind to the girl.

Yuji was the one to strike Gunter across the face, causing the German to let go of Tadashi and face the long-haired boy. "What was that?" he asked, his expression angry.

"Guess what, loser! Even if you defeated our partners, there's no way you've defeated us. There's no way that witch is going to take us!" Yuji yelled at the German.

"You lost, you idiots," Gunter said calmly while glaring holes into Yuji and cracking his knuckles.

Tadashi didn't believe it. His partner was the only one that was still at the Champion level and even he was flickering. He couldn't hold his form for much long.

Still, there was no way that the blond was going to let this guy take him and his friends to serve some girl who was obviously evil. Besides, he still had things he needed to do. Saving the other Tamers and meeting the black-haired boy from that vision. There was no way he was going to lose.

"Not a chance!" he yelled out at the top of his lungs. He wasn't the smartest tool in the shed but he realized that he was going to win here. There was no way he wouldn't since if he didn't, those visions wouldn't happen.

His digivice had a green glow. Tadashi picked it up and looked at it. The crest of Hope was emblazoned across the screen.

Then it exploded in green light and so did his partner.

**SUPER DIGIVOLUTION_**

"Firamon digivolve to…!" the digimon yelled, changing into a bipedal version of himself that was ready to strike at the enemy in front of him. He had broad shoulders covered in metal and a long mane that went wildly down his back. The new, upright form caused his claws to glow with bright flames. "… Flaremon!"

Tadashi looked at the digimon before him. He couldn't believe it: his partner had reached the Ultimate level.

"Way to go, man!" Yuji cheered.

Taizou smiled at the sight as well, despite not having been able to participate in the battle himself. "Good job," he said even as Solarmon started to stir.

"Awesome!" Miki shouted.

"Yeah, this is great, Tadashi!" Ayaka cheered, hugging the blond boy who was taken aback.

Gunter, though, was startled by the sight. He realized two things: Firamon's health and stamina were back up to 100% while Infermon was still damaged by the numerous attacks the Champions had inflicted on him. There was only one way this battle was going to go and he knew what would happen if he lost.

His eyes turned into saucers. He started to stumble, a trait of his normal self that shouldn't have still been there. He knew he was going to lose.

He was feeling an emotion that should have been expunged from his psyche as soon as he was brainwashed by the Digimon Queen's partner: fear.

###

Ed walked with Daemon toward the exit point which was located inside the vast ruins beneath Oppidum Septentrionale. There were numerous other digimon with them. Apparently since the Queen's army was on its way, the cloaked digimon had sent out an evacuation order and the only ones remaining in the city were numerous volunteers that were going to use the city to defeat as many of the Queen's forces as they possibly could.

"So, are you staying?" the black-haired boy asked Daemon as he neared the vast gate that led below the level of the digital world they were in.

"Of course, there has to be someone to lead these forces," the cloaked digimon responded, sad that his work since the D-Reaper war had come to naught. "I have a form that I was thinking of using for the upcoming battle. I know that I can't use it for long, but I figured it would be a good idea."

Ed knew something was up. "You're not going to survive this are you?"

"Most likely I won't. It's a shame. Someday I would like to go to your world." The digimon's voice was filled with regret.

"So, how come you don't want to take over the world or something?" the black-haired boy asked after a couple seconds, curious about the large digimon.

"I realize that world domination is pointless. When I was still a Rookie before the D-Reaper invasion began and I was forced to warp digivolve to this form, I met a digimon that was far worse than I was. That made me desire to change my ways, especially since he didn't want to recruit me for his own ambitions. Eventually I helped lead the forces that went against him during the D-Reaper invasion."

Ed was surprised by that one. "You mean there were digimon that sided with the D-Reaper?" he asked.

"No, it was more like a three-way battle. At the same time we fought the D-Reaper, we had to deal with this digimon as well and this digimon fought both us and the D-Reaper. The whole invasion was a very humbling experience."

The black-haired boy looked down. "I'm sorry I doubted you."

The cloaked digimon took it in stride. "No need to apologize. I understand. Meeting a Daemon should strike you with fear since we're so powerful and generally evil. And as it is, it's harder to turn good than evil."

Ed nodded. "Alright, if you ever go to my world and you're in Chile, look for me or my dad. His name is Antonio Guevara and he's too big to miss. If you're in America, look for my cousins that live there. They live in Oxnard, California. Tell them I sent you."

Daemon smiled under the cloak. Then again, he always smiled under his cloak but this time he really meant it.

They had reached the gate. "Here we are," the city leader commented, indicating a large Blimpmon that was ready to take the Tamer and his partner down to the Sovereign's level.

"Well, good bye. Stay alive, man," Ed told the large, robed digimon.

"I'll do my best. Have a long, fulfilling life, Ed. And Prokyomon, keep an eye on this boy."

"You bet I will!" the raccoon exclaimed from his partner's shoulder.

Ed immediately boarded the blimp which was packed full of digimon ranging from a viral Ogremon to a vaccine-type Piddomon. The black-haired boy felt really out of place and immediately held onto a nearby pole as the bay door shut and the Blimpmon lifted off.

###

Flaremon stared down Infermon, holding his burning fists and readying himself for the oncoming battle. Immediately, the lion-like Ultimate spread his wings and moved forward, dodging a Network Grenade from the enemy digimon. The attack that flew by him seemed weaker than before. That meant that the digimon in front of him was losing stamina.

That was his chance.

"Crimson Beast King Wave!" he yelled, striking Infermon against the head with a lion-shaped beam of energy. The virus struck his opponent with one of his appendages, throwing Flaremon back. However, the lion was able to stop himself in mid-air.

Flaremon flew up into the air and engulfed himself in flames. "Red Lion Dance!" he yelled, heading straight for the digimon to kick and punch him in multiple spots, knocking the enemy digimon backwards hundreds of feet and leaving a massive trail of destruction ranging from the ground to the trees.

"Spider Shooter!" Infermon yelled out, shooting out an orb of pink energy at Flaremon. The flying lion moved forward, dodging the attack and dive-bombing Infermon with his fist.

"Crimson Beast King Wave!" This time, the attack caused a number of cracks to form all over the Virus' armor.

"Almost there," Tadashi said quietly while at the same time feeling wary of the large German that was standing next to him, watching the battle in shock. The other Tamers realized they needed to do something about the enemy Tamer in front of them.

So Taizou and Yuji jumped on him, attempting to restrain Gunter. Ayaka joined in along with Miki, who, while not wanting to break any nails, decided to help. The fellow teen was strong and apparently the Digimon Queen's brainwashing removed the majority of mental limitations on the teen's strength, causing him to throw all four of his fellow Tamers back. Gunter had an angry look on his face.

"You think this is funny! You think you can really win! Well, guess what, maggots, she's coming and she'll take you just like she took me!" he yelled.

Then the teen received a tackle courtesy of Tadashi. "Don't yell at my friends, dirtbag," he told him angrily.

Meanwhile, Infermon's cracks increased in size until the flesh beneath was exposed.

"Crimson Beast King Wave!" Firamon yelled, unleashing a pair of powerful punches against his opponent, burning the Ultimate from inside out. The digimon screamed in agony before devolving back to his Rookie form of Keramon.

At the same time, Gunter screamed out in agony, holding onto the sides of his head as his mind was destroyed.

Then he fell limp to the ground.

The other stared at the sight for a few brief seconds, not sure what had happened, before Yuji spoke up.

"Dude, is he… dead?" he asked in a worried tone.

Ayaka hurried over to the German, feeling the teen's heartbeat before talking to the group. "He's alive," she said.

The team surrounded their enemy, unsure of what to do. Then Tadashi made a decision. "We'll take him with us," he said. He didn't want this guy to be captured by the Queen again. As it was, the teen was comatose.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Taizou asked the blond. "We don't know this guy and for all we know, the Digimon Queen is going to use him to spy on us."

Tadashi thought about it for a second, scratching his chin as he did so. "No, that wouldn't make sense. To spy on us through him, she would have to have access to his brain and for that to happen, she would need one of those telepathic digimon nearby."

"You know, Tadashi, you've got a point," Ayaka told him.

"No, we're not taking him," Miki said, matter-of-fact, getting the astonished looks of the rest of the team.

"What? Why?" Tadashi asked.

"Um, look at him. He's ugly. If we want another team member, he has to be a hot bishonen like on the cover of some of my favorite manga." The rest of the team seethed at that reasoning, glaring at her.

"We're taking him and that's final," Tadashi said, reaching down and lifting Gunter's limp body up from off the ground by the shoulder. "Can somebody help me?"

Taizou immediately went over. "Man, this guy's heavy."

Yuji looked over at Miki. "So, uh, do _any _of us qualify as bishonen?" the long-haired boy asked, glaring at the girl.

"Uh, you kind of do, but your hair is too long. And then there's Taizou, who needs to get his eyebrows waxed. And Tadashi needs to lose weight. There, I said it."

"You know, your reasoning is incredibly shallow," Ayaka told the girl.

"What? Come on, how come you can't agree with it. You know, if this Eduardo guy isn't hot, then I'm so going to die!"

The blonde continued glaring at her friend. It was just then when Salamon, Syakomon and Commandramon came back along with a bouncing digimon right behind them. Tadashi looked over at the digimon and recognized his partner. "What?" He pulled out his digivice and checked it. "Sunmon, In-Training Level. You de-digivolved past Rookie?"

"Yeah, I don't know why," the digimon remarked jumping into his partner's hands. "It must be a side-effect of digivolving to Ultimate like on the TV-show.

"But after Takato's partner reached Ultimate, this didn't happen," the blond said, still unsure.

"It must be a side-effect of using the Crest Program," Taizou observed.

"By the way, I also have our prisoner of war," Commandramon said, indicating that he was holding Keramon. "What should we do with him? Should we hold him hostage to negotiate a treaty with the Digimon Queen?"

"I don't think that would work," Taizou replied. "Besides, she effectively wiped Gunter's mind after we lost and we decided to take him with us." The brown-haired looked at his partner and smiled. "So, you ready to go, Solarmon?"

"Certainly," the now-awake digimon replied. "I see I missed a little bit while I was out."

"Not too much, man. Don't worry about it," his partner replied as they started the now-far-smaller walk toward the city.

It was about then that Tadashi realized someone was missing. "Hey, where's Agumon?" he asked the rest of the group even as he was practically dragging Gunter with Yuji's help.

###

A/N: Well, that little mini-arc is over. Let's see what happens with our new German friend. And the American guy too. Can't forget about him.

As far as the team is concerned, my final plans are there to be eight members by the middle of the third arc. Hopefully the number of characters isn't too high. The eighth member will be a girl, though it won't be the one from the next chapter (unfortunately for those who like the girl in question. I have other plans for her).


	13. Seeing the Sovereign

Chapter 13: Seeing the Sovereigns

###

Disclaimer: I definitely don't own Digimon.

###

The second Blimpmon descended into a valley of crystal and landed before opening its bay doors. In the meantime, a number of other digimon that were transporting more refugees landed, dropping their passengers off. At the edge of the crystal landing bay was a blonde girl along with a number of new Devas walking toward the landing site. The girl had lonely blue eyes that failed to hide the sorrow inside her.

"Welcome to the Sovereign Level," the girl said, speaking. "On behalf of Azulongmon, we extend our hospitality."

"It is good to meet you," Wisemon responded. "I take it the Sovereigns are busy?"

"They are. However, they have made accommodations to send you down to the newly discovered planetary digital world," the girl added. "There you will all be able to live in peace."

Wisemon nodded. "Thank you and thank the Sovereigns. I have to ask, though: are you human?"

The girl nodded. "Yes, why do you ask?"

"We have a human with us. In fact, he may be the Digimon Queen's main objective," the robed digimon remarked. Alice's eyes widened and she shook. How could one of the Tamers be in the digital world right now and she not hear about it? She wasn't ready to meet another human, not after so long. Still, she didn't want to let her guests down.

"I-I would like to, um, meet him," she responded.

Come with me," Wisemon told her, leading her toward one of the Blimpmon while the Devas started processing the other refugees. Inside the airship, all the blonde could see was that there was someone sitting in one of the seats in the cockpit. The girl continued walking; curious as to whether the Tamer was someone she had met. As she approached though, she heard talking.

"So, anyway, as soon as we get off, we're going to have to talk to one of the Sovereigns," the Tamer, a boy, remarked in English.

"Yeah, you already said that like fifteen times already," a digimon said. "So, what are you drawing?"

"A character for that game I'm going to start making when I get back. This is the main villain, actually," he responded. Then the two heard a throat clearing behind them and turned the chairs they were in around and Alice found herself face to face with a chunky, black-haired boy that she just assumed right off the bat was Mexican, even though his skin color was quite a bit lighter than the average Mestizo. Maybe he was one with very little Indian blood, if any. Of course, he could also be Irish or Italian, or even Arab.

She didn't know how to react to this guy, who seemed to be somewhat thrown off by her sudden appearance.

"Oh, another Tamer! What are the chances, huh?" Prokyomon asked excited to finally meet another human that wasn't trying to either kill or kidnap them.

The blonde just stood there, pensive. "My name is Alice."

"You can call me Ed," the black-haired boy responded, holding his hand out for a shake. "So, what's a pretty girl like you doing in the deepest recesses of the Digital World?" He smiled, trying to get rid of the nervousness inside of him caused by meeting a cute girl.

"I don't know? What's a Mexican-American guy like you doing here in the Sovereign's level?" Alice asked.

Ed grinned wider. "I'm not Mexican. And as for what I'm doing here, let's say I'm on the run from a psycho wannabe-girlfriend and leave it at that."

The girl nodded. "The Digimon Queen?"

"That's her. I don't know what she sees in me, but here I am." The black-haired boy got up and stretched his arms. Alice had to guess that Ed was of fairly average height. "So, when can I see the Sovereign?" he inquired.

"I'll take you to Azulongmon straight away," she said, indicating for him to follow her.

###

The team finally made it to Oppidum Septentrionale. At one point during the short journey from the battlefield to the city, Yuji got tired of helping to carry Gunter and so slashed a stamina seed and digivolved Commandramon to Sealsdramon. Now the reptilian assassin was carrying the German teen instead.

Once entering the city, Tadashi noticed that something was amiss. "This place is empty."

"Yeah, no kidding," Yuji remarked, walking up to an unmanned stall in the marketplace they were in and picking up a piece of fruit. He regretted it once he bit into it, though, realizing it tasted like raw meat and immediately spitting it out. "Yuck, what is this crap?"

"Uh, I don't think you're supposed to do that," Ayaka said with a glare. Yuji just shrugged and put the piece of fruit back where he found it so that nobody would see the bite.

Then they saw a digimon that was on patrol, a Champion-level Angemon. The team had a stare down with the angel, who quickly bolted in the opposite direction.

"What was that about? He was kind of cute," Miki remarked, causing the rest of the team to groan.

"Have you ever seen Digimon Adventure?" Taizou asked, realizing the need to keep on the watch for any more digimon.

"Nope. I just became a Tamer because it was cool. That's all. Besides, it's not like the TV show matches anything in the real world, anyway." The dark-haired girl was continuing to receive incredulous stares from the rest of the team.

"Actually, there's a lot it has in common with the TV show," Ayaka remarked.

"And remember what the old man said about Ryo knowing Tai?" Tadashi asked, grinning at the thought. "Come on, you've got to admit that's pretty cool."

When they turned around the corner, and Ayaka gasped at the sight of a number of Ultimate digimon headed their way, apparently having been alerted by the Angemon they spotted earlier. The group included a MagnaAngemon, a group of Piximon and a CaptainHookmon. "You will come with us," MagnaAngemon told the team.

###

A few minutes later, the six Tamers and their digimon were in the office of a certain Mega-level that they neither expected to meet nor wanted to meet. In fact, the sight of Daemon made their skin crawl.

"Daemon!" Tadashi yelled out.

"Yes?" he asked. "That is my name. Hmm… Maybe I should use a form that you'd find more comfortable, hmm..?" The robed digimon made a sign with his hand. "Slide Evolution… ShadowSeraphimon!"

The digimon they saw was a corrupted version of Patamon's Mega form, and that still made the others uncomfortable. "It's a shame I can't hold this form for very long or achieve the form of regular Seraphimon," the angel remarked. "As I mentioned earlier to another human, it is easier to become evil than good."

"Yeah, but you're probably bad to the bone, anyway," Tadashi remarked. "What did you do to the other digimon in the city? And where's the other human you were talking about?"

ShadowSeraphimon lowered his head. "Currently, he's en route to the Sovereign Level along with all of the evacuees," he said.

"What? Why?" Taizou asked.

"Because there is an invasion force a mere six hours away," the angel responded. "I am aware that you aren't with them, though."

"And that's because I told him." The group looked behind them to see Agumon Hakase.

"Agumon!" Ayaka exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"I asked to stay behind and wait for you. In fact, I want to go with you to the Sovereign Level and even further to increase my knowledge. My university education here is done," the yellow dinosaur said sadly. "Please, if it's agreeable to you."

"You can come with. No problem," Tadashi spoke for the others.

"Um, are you sure that's a good idea," Taizou asked. "If we keep getting members, we won't have enough room on Blimpmon for all these guys. We still need to save room for Eduardo and his partner, for instance."

"Hey, what difference is one small lizard going to make?" the blond asked, causing Taizou to scratch his chin. "You know, I should have left this up to a vote. All in favor of letting Agumon Hakase come with us, raise your hand."  
Miki, Ayaka, Tadashi, Solarmon, Salamon, and Sealsdramon raised their hands. That meant more than half and since Syakomon and Sunmon didn't have hands, they couldn't vote anyway. "Okay, then, it's settled. Agumon, you can come with us."

"Good."

"So, what can you tell us about Eduardo?" Ayaka asked ShadowSeraphimon.

"He's quiet but he and his partner seem to have their heart in the right place. He was actually hoping that his own father would come to the digital world to bring him back, but that's not likely."

"Yeah, that would mean that his father was a Tamer," Tadashi remarked, scornfully. The others glared at him. Taizou even started to put two and two together.

_Wait, could that mean that the reason Antonio Guevara decided to go to the digital world was because… no way. _Taizou remembered what the boy looked like. He decided not to say anything. At one point, Solarmon was about to speak up but the brown-haired boy held his finger up to his mouth to tell him not to say anything.

"Anyway, you're going to need to go down to the Sovereign Level immediately. AncientWisemon!" Immediately, a black hole formed in the ground and a green, robed digimon appeared from out of it.

"Yes, Consul?" the green-cloaked digimon asked.

"Take these Tamers to the Sovereign Level," ShadowSeraphimon ordered. It turned out that AncientWisemon, one of many digimon given the Mega-level by Calumon's Shining Digivolution, could teleport long distances but only to places he had already been to. The Legendary Warrior of Steel made a couple of hand-signs and everyone in the room other than ShadowSeraphimon disappeared in a flash of light.

###

On the Sovereign Level, Ed and Alice were riding the gondola to Azulongmon's chambers. The black-haired boy had no idea how to interact with the cute girl next to him and found himself biting his bottom lip and biting his nails, two things he wished he didn't do but that he did do when he was nervous.

He grinned nervously before attempting to speak. "So, where's your partner?" he asked.

"Dobermon sacrificed himself to give the Tamers in Japan the ability to reach Mega during the D-Reaper invasion," Alice said, sadly, giving Ed a shocked expression.

The black-haired boy didn't know how to respond other than a simple expression. "I'm sorry."

Alice looked down sadly. "If he hadn't done it, we wouldn't be here today," she said simply, still trying to hide her sadness.

"Still, it must be hard losing your partner," Prokyomon said.

"So, where are you from?" the blonde girl asked, trying to change the subject.

"For the past three weeks before going to the digital world, I lived in an orphanage in Paris, France. Don't ask why and no I didn't like it one bit. Maybe if I was allowed to go out of the house…" He chuckled a little bit, thinking of how ridiculous his mother's hatred of his father was. "Before that, I lived with my dad in Santiago, Chile. Nice weather there. Never gets too hot or cold. Before that, I was in Las Vegas, Nevada."

"You lived in Vegas? Cool," Alice commented, wistfully. "I wish I could go to Vegas."

Ed smiled. "Me too. I moved there when I was seven. Before that I was born and lived in Lancaster, California."

"Lancaster, huh? I lived in the San Francisco Bay area," the girl said. "My grandfather's a professor at Palo Alto University."

"Palo Alto?" Ed asked, surprised at the coincidence. "Both my parents went there. My dad went there for a computer science degree while my mom got one in business management."

"Cool." The gondola stopped and the trio stepped off in front of Azulongmon's palace. "Well, here we are," the girl said. "Now, remember to be respectful of the Sovereign."

"Don't worry, I'll try," the black-haired boy said with a chuckle as he followed the cute blonde.

###

The team found themselves in the sovereign's realm suddenly, slightly taken off guard by the whole thing. "So, where is he?" Tadashi asked AncientWisemon.

"He should be around here," the mage responded. The group looked around to see numerous digimon waiting around for something. Refugees from Oppidum Septentrionale. AncientWisemon held his index finger up while trying to locate the American, reducing his eyes to mere slits. "He's currently in Azulongmon's Chambers."

"Can you take us there?" Taizou asked.

"No, I can't. You will have to wait here." Then the green mage sensed something else. "No, it can't be."

"What is it?" Ayaka asked, confused.

"The Digimon Queen's army. It's headed straight here."

The group was flabbergasted. "What? You mean we headed all the way over here only to get cornered by the Wicked Witch of France's armies?" Yuji asked, confused.

"We're not exactly cornered," Tadashi said, walking over to the edge of the Sovereign's Level. "Hey, AncientWisemon, if we went down this way, would we eventually reach the planet?"

"Yes, you would," AncientWisemon said. "Prior to the D-Reaper invasion, that was where the D-Reaper itself resided, so the sovereign's layer was set up to block the planet from view."

"So, did the D-Reaper ever get up here before the D-Reaper invasion?" Taizou inquired.

"Yes, it did. Many years ago when the orbit of this part of the digital world wasn't as high, the D-Reaper came and destroyed many digimon before it was deleted and the orbit was increased." AncientWisemon thought about it for a second. "I'll take you to Azulongmon. Time is in the essence and I've already been to his chambers on behalf of Daemon."

The digimon held up his index finger again.

And the team disappeared.

###

A couple of minutes earlier, Ed was talking to the Sovereign. Unfortunately, he wasn't hearing what he wanted to hear. "Unfortunately, we can't send you back to your world," the giant blue dragon said in a booming voice. The black-haired boy felt fear at the digimon's might.

"But you sent the Devas to the real world, didn't you?" he asked.

"You are right. However, the portal was destroyed during the D-Reaper invasion to ensure that that abomination wouldn't use it to go to your world. Alas, he found a way, anyway as did we," the dragon explained.

"How did you do that?" Ed asked, hating where this was going.

"They used the globe," Alice indicated.

"And with the Digimon Queens armies surrounding the place, it wouldn't be a good idea to go that way," the dragon added.

It was at that time that Ed wished he hadn't come to the digital world in the first place. It was a last ditch effort that he shouldn't have undergone and he had come to deeply regret it. "Couldn't there possibly be another way?"

"There are rumors of a portal on the planet," Azulongmon said. "However, I'm not sure that it leads to your world."

"That's the best bet I have," the black-haired boy said. "Alice, don't you want to go back home too? Come with me."

Alice stood there. "I don't know… if I can."

Ed looked at her with confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Alice isn't completely human anymore," Azulongmon explained. "In fact, her body currently lies in a hospital."

Ed was shocked. "Wait, so she's like a… a ghost?"

"Well, technically, my mind transferred to the digital world. I was staying at my grandfather's at the time and he was performing some experiments using a program of his and, suddenly, I was here and my mind created this body." The blonde looked down sadly, a tear going down her face.

"There has only been one other instance of something like this happening," Azulongmon said. "A man named Gorou Mizuno was knocked out in a car crash and his consciousness was transferred to the digital world thanks to some communications he had made with the digimon here before hand. However, due to his age, his imagination wasn't sufficient to create a solid body like Alice's."

Ed didn't know what to think. "What if your body died in the real world?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," she said. "However, if I regained consciousness there, I would disappear from here much like Mizuno and awaken in the real world."

Ed looked toward the sovereign. "Okay, I'll…" His utterance was interrupted by a flash of light in the chambers and a green, robed digimon appeared along with six kids including an unconscious Gunter.

"What is the meaning of this?" the Sovereign asked in his booming voice.

"Lord Azulongmon, it turns out that there's an army headed straight this way. Apparently the army headed toward Oppidum Septentrionale was only a ruse."

###

"What are you doing?" Crimson's voice echoed angrily throughout the Queen's castle, particularly her throne room. The woman was starting to get slightly peeved by the know-it-all, who seemed to want to criticize a number of her decisions. The woman simply glanced at the Japanese Tamer, who adjusted his circular sunglasses as he walked in.

"What does it look like?" she asked, gesturing towards the wine glass in her hand as well as the shirtless man fanning her. "I'm just enjoying my reign as queen, that's all."

Crimson glared at her. "That's not what I meant. I was talking about your forces. The majority of them are headed straight for the Sovereigns' level."

"_Vraimente? _As I recall, a part of your plan involved taking out the sovereigns," she responded, gesturing for another shirtless male, this one decidedly hairy and in his late teens, to give her some hors d'oeuvres.

"But that wasn't until after we had taken out each of the governors," Crimson replied, glancing at each of the rather hefty servants. _Why couldn't she have girls in bikinis?_ he thought to himself.

"Oh, but it turns out that Ed is currently in the Sovereign Level along with a team of Japanese Tamers," the girl responded, "including a blond boy named Tadashi. It's quite exotic, don't you think? Asian and yet blond?"

"Yeah, very exotic," Crimson responded sarcastically, not buying it. "Turns out Tadashi's the name of a kid I know, who happens to be blond. Not that it's him."

The girl communicated with her partner who in turn projected an image into Crimson's mind of Tadashi. The man looked in horror. "You have got to be kidding me! It's him!"

"So, what can you tell me about him, Crimson, or should I say…" She walked up and whispered into the man's ear.

"I figured you knew my real name, your highness" the man said, decidedly not surprised. "As far as invading the sovereign level, that's supposed to be a joint effort by all three of us."

The woman nodded. "So, when _is _your American friend supposed to be here, anyway?" she asked, smirking.

"I didn't know he was your type," Crimson replied.

"Oh, _he's _not. I just want to see what his friends look like," the Queen responded, sitting back down on her throne.

"I doubt he'd be willing to lend them to you," Crimson said, stroking his long beard. "When he gets here, we're going to have to set up some ground rules, lady, or else this Triumvirate of mine ain't going to work." The man cleared his throat. "And by the way, I have an alternative. One of my subordinates can go down there and get the two Tamers you desire if you call your forces off."

"Okay, I'll do that." The woman chuckled. "So, how _did _you meet this guy, anyway?"

"We met while he was on vacation in Japan. We were both recruited last October to help these two other guys out against the D-Reaper here in the Digital World. Of course, we ended up fighting this thing called TysiachaGlazkovmon instead. You know how it goes: you come here expecting to fight one dude and you end up going against something totally different."

"You should tell me about that sometime," the Queen responded, smiling mischievously.

###

After their meeting with Azulongmon ended abruptly with AncientWisemon disappearing, the team boarded Blimpmon almost immediately and headed down the cave where Sakuyamon had fought against the D-Reaper the year before, sinking down past the edge of the known digital world.

Inside, everyone was quiet. They hoped that leaving would cause the Digimon Queen to go somewhere else and it seemed that after they made it past the initial group of caves that her forces left with the exception of what seemed to be a few scouts.

Tadashi watched as they continued downward. He glanced at the rest of the team. It seemed that everyone was getting a much-needed rest from the whirlwind that they had endured over the past couple of days. That and there were the three new recruits.

He didn't know why they had to bring Gunter with them, but he knew that the large German was a victim and that they needed to do something to help him. Unfortunately, it seemed that the Digimon Queen's partner digimon did a serious number on his brain and all that he could say was various mumblings in German.

That girl Alice, on the other hand, was something to look at. On the other hand, the girl was in the digital world without a partner and so they had to do something to help. But there was something about her that seemed so mysterious.

Then there was Ed. Tadashi hadn't talked to the heavy boy much, but there was something about him that put him off. He didn't know what. However, he was definitely the most useful of the new recruits, even though his partner had only reached Champion the day before.

Tadashi glanced over at his brown-haired friend who was watching out the window as they flew through the caverns that led out of the orbital world. The blond wondered why they didn't just go over the edge. The answer he had gotten was that the exit of these caves was the closest to the planet.

"Well, at least the Queen's forces are backing off," Taizou commented, looking at his digivice. "Still, Azulongmon's got the right idea of relocating to the surface, especially if they have to go against a team of biomerged Megas. I hear that Zhuqiaomon almost got defeated by Henry and Terriermon when they were here."

"I wonder what that fight was like," Tadashi responded.

"Good question," Taizou replied. "You know, I think I'm going to talk to the new guy over there. You mind keeping an eye on the controls."

Tadashi chuckled as his brown-haired friend got up. "As if there's much to do. Blimpmon's the one doing the driving."

"Keep an eye on the Queen's forces, then," Taizou shot back before turning toward the others. He walked past Miki, who was bummed that Ed wasn't pretty, and Ayaka, who couldn't care any less. He also spotted Yuji, who was trying to sleep while Commandramon was continuously on guard. To be honest, Taizou couldn't blame the digimon. For all he knew, the forces of the Digimon Queen could show up any minute.

"So, what happened with Gunter, anyway?" Ed asked Taizou as the brown-haired Japanese boy approached. Taizou had to adjust quickly to speaking English and the black-haired boy was sitting next to the near-comatose German.

"The Digimon Queen screwed up his mind after Tadashi defeated his partner," Taizou replied.

"What a horrible person," Alice commented. "I can't believe anyone would be like that."

"And to think she has a digimon that I designed," Ed said, regretting ever designing Coonmon.

"You designed it?" Taizou asked, surprised.

"Yeah. I never scanned his design into my first digivice and I'm glad I didn't. My dad actually looked over the design and told me that it was a bit extreme and he was right. As it was, I only added telepathy to try and find him in the first place. It turned out that my dad ended up finding me anyway." Ed chuckled.

"Your dad's Antonio Guevara, right?" Taizou asked in almost a whisper. He didn't want word of this to reach Tadashi.

"Yeah, why are you whispering?" the black-haired boy asked, confused.

"My friend over there doesn't like your dad. No offense, but I wouldn't tell him about him yet," Taizou explained, gesturing toward Tadashi, who was minding his own business and messing with his digivice.

"Gotcha and no offense taken," Ed responded. He looked at the others and noticed Ayaka looking at them with a smile. Taizou noticed too.

"What? I'm just trying to figure out what you're talking about. That's all," the blonde girl told Taizou in Japanese. "All I got was Antonio Guevara."

"Yeah, I was just asking if he had the upgrade," the brown-haired teen lied before asking in English. "You have the upgrade to the digivice's operating system, right?"

Ed nodded. "It came with the digivice."

"So, who is Antonio Guevara, actually?" Alice asked, not knowing that everyone could hear her. Tadashi decided to voice his opinions then and there.

"A jerk. The guy wouldn't even let his own son become a Tamer even though he's one!" the blond exclaimed.

"I can't blame him," Alice responded, almost deadpan. "The job of a digimon Tamer is a difficult one. You know, I think I remember him as one of my grandpa's contacts. He's from Argentina, right?"

"Chile, actually," Ed corrected.

"So, what do you think of how he wouldn't let his kid be a Tamer, Ed?" Tadashi asked, hoping that the black-haired boy would be on his side.

Ed chuckled a bit. "Uh, I think that's between him and his son and Alice is right. This is dangerous work."

"Wait, you don't disagree with him?" the blond asked.

"I didn't say that. I think that maybe he could have let his son have a digimon but just not let him go out and fight wild ones. But like I say, that's his opinion." The black-haired boy gave the blond Japanese boy a determined smile. "Besides, there's the whole 'honor your father and your mother' thing."

"Yeah, but…"

"But Ed's right," Ayaka remarked before winking at the black-haired boy, who blushed in response. Why did Asian girls have to be so exotic?

Tadashi glared at his teammates. Miki just shrugged. "Don't worry, Tadashi, I'm on your side," the dark-haired girl simply said.

"But you don't even understand English," Ayaka chided the girl.

"I'm only joking," Miki replied. "Come on, you have to admit, Tadashi gets kind of funny-looking when he's mad."

"Der Kinder ist aus Asien aber er hat blondes haar," the group was surprised to hear a third language come into the group and looked over at Gunter. "Was?" the large teen asked.

"Did he just say something?" Yuji asked, just as surprised as everyone else.

"Yeah, he said that I have blond hair, that's all," Tadashi responded both in Japanese and in English.

"You speak German? Cool," Ed commented as the blond got up and looked at Gunter before speaking to him.

"Was weisst du?" _What do you know?_ He asked.

Gunter simply shrugged. "Wo bin ich?" _Where am I?_

"(You're in the Digital World)", Tadashi tried explaining.

"(Where?)" the large, brown-haired boy asked, confused. "(I'm not in Cologne?)"

"(No, you're in the Digital World, on a Digimon)." Gunter still looked as confused as ever. "(You know what a digimon is, right)?" In response, he got a shaking of the head and an even more confused Tamer. Tadashi pointed out the German's partner, who really _was _comatose and lying wrapped up in his tentacles. "(That's your partner)."

Unfortunately, he wasn't getting the point across. "Gunter, can you understand English?" Ed asked the brown-haired teen and got a blank look. "Strange, the time I met him before, he spoke really good English. That girl must have done something to him."

"What do you know about the Digimon Queen?" Tadashi asked, hoping to get something out of Ed.

"Her name is Marie Cauvin and she's French. Other than that… Well, we didn't talk much. She thinks my dad's been abusing me all my life when that's not the case, but when we were both at the orphanage, she didn't speak English and I couldn't speak French."

"Why were you in a French orphanage anyway?" Taizou asked, confused at that.

"My mom kidnapped me and put me there."

Tadashi's eyes just about popped out. "What do you mean your mom kidnapped you?"

"Well, she had ties to some anti-digimon organization that she hired and, well, they did the work for her. You see, she lost custody of me and she absolutely hates my dad, so, yeah."

Tadashi was still slack-jawed. "Wow, what a horrible lady. Sorry, I don't know any better words to describe her. My vocabulary's still not that great in English."

"No problem. I was thinking of a specific five-letter word but due to the whole 'honor your father and your mother' thing I'm trying to live by, I decided not to use it, even though she probably deserves it." Ed chuckled a little bit.

"Yeah, she sounds like she's crazy," Taizou remarked.

"You have any crazy relatives?" Ed asked, curious.

"My dad's nuts, but not like that. He's just a deadbeat loser that left my mom when I was about a year old," Taizou explained.

"Then there are my parents who won't let me go out and fight digimon, but I do it anyway," Tadashi replied, not getting the point Ed made earlier.

"I miss my parents," Alice commented, causing all eyes to turn on her. "I wonder what they're doing."

"Yeah, same here," Ed agreed. "Heck, I even miss my mom a little, even though she's nuts. I wonder what my dad is doing. Probably lounging around the house in his underwear like before he got custody of me."

"Wow, that's an embarrassing sight," Taizou commented. "I bet my mom's probably trying to get me to have some friends over during the weekend. And yeah, I miss her, even if her advice constantly turns into lectures."

"That's how my dad is," Tadashi remarked.

"Funny, my dad's always been the nurturing type, or at least as long as I've known him," Ed replied. "He's a teacher, so of course he's probably used to dealing with kids and I've seen how he deals with my cousins." The black-haired boy decided to leave out that his dad was a university professor. "Plus, there's how he is with his parents."

"Sounds like a cool guy," Tadashi commented.

"Yeah, no kidding," Taizou said. "So, your dad hangs out in his underwear? That's gotta be awkward."

"I don't even want to know what he looks like," Alice said deadpan. "Somehow I get the feeling I won't like it."

"It's true, you won't," Ed said boisterously, grinning the whole time.

"(I'm so confused right now)," Gunter said, looking around.

Just then, the intercom buzzed. "We're currently leaving the caves." The group all got up, save Gunter, and ran to the front of the cabin. The globe was in front of them in all its majestic glory.

"It's beautiful," Miki remarked in Japanese.

"Just like that time in those catwalks, huh?" Taizou said.

"Just think of how much all that land costs. I could make a fortune!" Yuji exclaimed.

"Yeah, right," Tadashi shot back. "You'd probably get it all taken away by the Digimon Queen, or, excuse me, Marie Cauvin."

Ed didn't understand what everybody was saying, but Alice did, somehow. Maybe it was her status as a digital lifeform. As it was, none of the digimon ever had any problem understanding them.

The black-haired boy just backed off from the group, but not before looking at the massive blue orb one last time. He edged toward his laptop bag and pulled out a notebook. Unfortunately, just as he was about to draw, the airship shook.

"What was that?" Taizou asked.

"Hull breach! Hydrogen and Helium dropping to 95%," Blimpmon said in a panic. "I need someone to go and check on that."

"I'll do that!" Prokyomon called before heading up into the balloon. After a couple seconds, the digimon came back down. "There, all done."

"Not quite!" Tadashi exclaimed, looking outside. Right in their path was a humanoid digimon that had a crow's head for a helmet and a pair of golden swords. The blond pulled out his digivice and checked for data. "Karatenmon, Ultimate Level, Virus Attribute."

"Karatenmon… Another Ultimate," Taizou commented.

"Let's do this! Same formation as last time but there's only one enemy out there!" Tadashi ordered the group.

"And I'm supposed to do what?" Ed asked.

"You get to help Sealsdramon and Ranamon protect against borders. Everyone else to the front of the cabin. Du auch, Gunter!"

"Was?" was the German's only response before Ed and Alice held his hands and led him toward the front.

Taizou looked ahead at their opponent. He didn't know whether this was one of the Queen's or not, but he was prepared.

He was going to protect Ed for Antonio's sake as well as Alice and Gunter, who were both defenseless.

He grabbed his cards and prepared for another battle. There was no way he was sitting this one out like the one with Infermon.

###

A/N: And so they face another Digimon. Does this mean that somebody else will reach Ultimate. Tune in next time… or something.

Sorry if my German isn't up to snuff. I studied it for two years in high school, but it's been awhile. If anybody can think of a better way of saying what these guys are saying, feel free to let me know in a review. Even if you can't, let me know what you think of this story. I know there are people reading it, even if it's not getting as much attention as some of those shipping fics out there.


	14. Into the Unknown

Chapter 14: Into the Unknown

###

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

###

In a hospital, a patient's fingers started to twitch, something that the visiting nurse, a heavyset woman, noticed as she was tending to the girl. The woman panicked for a second before reaching for the phone. "Doctor, the patient's starting to move!" she exclaimed into the corded device.

_"Are you talking about…? I'll call her family immediately," _a man's voice said from the other side, equally excited.

The woman hung up and looked at the patient. "Alice, I hope this means you're going to wake up," she said, looking at the blonde's limp body.

###

He had hoped that this would be a worthy opponent, though he wasn't sure whether that would truly be the case since Blimpmon was merely a Champion-level digimon. Still, he had a mission to carry out, and he was going to do that.

Karatenmon was ready. He flapped his black wings just as Blimpmon's rear compartment opened up and faced two more enemies, a Firamon and a D'Arcmon. "Feather Flare!" he yelled, unleashing numerous razor-sharp feathers at his opponents.

"Agh! This is going to be tougher than I thought!" Firamon exclaimed, reeling from the attack.

"No kidding. Can't you digivolve to Ultimate already?" the angel asked.

Karatenmon smiled. This would be an easy mission. Just grab the two brats he was after and take them with him to the citadel.

Piece of cake.

###

"More hull breaches!" Taizou exclaimed, grabbing the kit he was going to use to seal up the holes in Blimpmon caused by Karatenmon's feathers. The brown-haired boy climbed up the ladder.

"There's a repair kit just under the captain's chair," the airship told the team.

"Hey, you want me to help?" Ed asked from the base of the ladder, surprisingly calm despite the situation.

"Sure, come on up." The black-haired teen did so, following his acquaintance into the balloon. The duo worked together, taking tape from the repair kit to patch up any and all holes. "It's weird. My partner's body is supposed to be more protected than this. Then again, Karatenmon _is _an Ultimate."  
Ed nodded before asking a question of his own. "So, what's this digimon's Ultimate form anyway?"

"To be honest, I have no idea," Taizou replied. "So, status?"

"So far, my structure is fine," Blimpmon said over the intercom.

"Okay, I'll give you some help." Taizou pulled a card out of his pocket. "Digi-Modify, Speed Activate!"

As the blimp made some quick moves, everyone grabbed onto something with the exception of Gunter who was strapped into his seat.

"(This blimp is moving fast)!" the large teen commented in German.

"Man, can't this guy say anything else?" Yuji complained.

"Yuji, that's not nice!" Ayaka censured him.

"Hey, it's true," the long-haired boy said, eliciting a glare from the blonde Japanese girl.

"Is there any chance I will be seeing some action?" Sealsdramon complained, irritated that he was stuck inside this cramped airship while two of the others were duking it out with Karatenmon.

"Maybe I should slide a Hyper-wing card or something," Yuji stated.

"That might not be a bad idea," Tadashi said, turning his chair around. "I'll keep on trying digivolve to Ultimate." The blond boy looked at his digivice in frustration. "Digivolution Activate!" Nothing happened. "Come on!"

Taizou looked in astonishment at his friends. He had to help them all out somehow.

###

Outside, the three digimon that were going up against Karatenmon were having a miserable fight. "Fira Bomb!" Firamon yelled out, unleashing a fireball from the crystal on his back.

"La Pucelle!" D'Arcmon shouted, meeting the crow's swords with her own.

"Hydrogen Bomb!" Blimpmon yelled out, shooting a missile at Karatenmon. D'Arcmon got out of the way just as it struck. When the smoke cleared, there was not a single point of damage on Karatenmon's body.

"Why are you doing this?" the angel asked the crow, who gave a chuckle in response.

"I am here on behalf of my master to retrieve two of your party," Karatenmon replied.

"Your partner is brainwashed! Can't you tell?" Firamon exclaimed at the enemy digimon.

"No, he's not. Crimson is merely working with the Digimon Queen to bring about a better digital world," the crow-man explained. "And he is _not _my partner."

"Crimson? That's that one Tamer that Ryo met here in the digital world, right?" Tadashi asked, inside Blimpmon.

"Exactly," Taizou remarked. "So, they're working together. Great and that guy's got a Mega-level for a partner from what Ryo said about him."

"What? A mega? That's insane!" Ed exclaimed, lucky that the duo was speaking English instead of Japanese for once.

Taizou knew this enemy was after his friends and he just couldn't stand that. He had to do something to defeat him. He looked at each of them.

Tadashi, who had his heart in the right place despite his prejudices and Ed who just wanted to get home to his father.

The brown-haired teen clenched his fists as Blimpmon made another sharp turn, causing him to grab onto the chair in front of him. As soon as they were level once again, Taizou ran over to the intercom and spoke into it.

"Karatenmon, you might as well go home empty-handed. There's no way I'm going to let you take my friends to give to that witch, the Digimon Queen!" he exclaimed to Karatenmon.

The enemy digimon chuckled madly. "Well, in that case, I'll just have to destroy Blimpmon first," Karatenmon stated, bolting forward and pushing both Firamon and D'Arcmon out of the way, aiming his swords straight at Taizou's partner digimon and slicing a deep gash along the left side of the airship, causing large amounts of digital hydrogen to come out. The digimon started to sink down toward the planet and it was all Taizou's fault.

The group around him looked on in terror as they fell.

"That's the last straw, birdbrain!" D'Arcmon yelled out, bolting straight toward the enemy digimon that they were up against and meeting his swords with hers.

"Yeah, Fira Bomb!" Firamon yelled out, unleashing the attack on his enemy.

Taizou was dumbfounded. How could he let them down like this? He didn't want this to happen. He had already been let down too much as it was, particularly by his father…

He didn't want to be like that jerk that he only sees once a year, if that. He got up with determination from his own comparison. He wasn't going to let them die.

"Digi-modify, Seed of Health Activate!" he yelled out, slashing the card after going through his deck. Unfortunately, the alarm klaxons were still going and they were still descending. "Crap!"

There was no way he was going to let his friends down. He looked at everyone behind him. They were all strapped in. He watched as Sealsdramon flew off with two pairs of white wings attached to his back. There was no way he was going to lose.

No way.

All the sudden, his digivice burst with the blue light of the crest program of Friendship.

And everything changed around him.

###

On his way to the battle, Sealsdramon was momentarily distracted by the sight of Blimpmon changing form. So were Karatenmon and D'Arcmon apparently, because the next thing he knew, the crow was hit head on by one of Firamon's attacks.

**SUPER DIGIVOLUTION_**

"Blimpmon digivolve to…" the digimon was far larger now and had the form of a giant white airship with turrets and walkways along the sides as well as a pair of torpedo bays as well. The digimon's eyes were on the bottom of the airship's living areas which were substantially larger and more comfortable than his Champion form's.

"… Zeppelinmon!"

They finally had an ultimate in this fight.

The digimon's turrets came out from the sides and shot forth. "Rapid Burst!" he yelled as Karatenmon was hit by hundreds of lasers. The digimon immediately started to try and deflect his enemy's attacks with his twin swords, but still got hit by a few.

"This is… unexpected," the crow commented, holding his swords in front of him. "Harmony Swords!" He then flew forward to try and attack the enemy digimon's weak point, but was stopped by a stab through the chest from D'Arcmon.

"Forgetting someone?" the angel asked before getting out of the way of another attack.

"Nuclear Bombardment!" Zeppelinmon yelled out, shooting a missile straight at Karatenmon at many times the speed of sound. The digimon flew off in the distance before the attack impacted with the enemy, dragging him hundreds of miles before exploding, deleting the enemy digimon for good in an amazing flash of neon green energy.

The group of digimon immediately boarded the new Ultimate through the bay in the back of the digimon before devolving back to their rookie forms.

"I'm glad that's over," Coronamon commented, collapsing on the bay floor.

###

The Tamers, along with Guepardomon and Ranamon found themselves on a big fancy bridge toward the front of the airship, each sitting in various chairs. All in all, it reminded Taizou of the Enterprise Bridge from that Star Trek show that Keith lent him to help with his English, only fancier and white.

"Sir, I'm not reading any transmissions," Ranamon said with a giggle, sitting in the communication chair with an earpiece in her right ear.

"Ranamon! Don't do that. It's nerdy," Miki complained, glaring at her partner.

"Aw, come on!" the sea digimon objected.

"Besides, Miki, don't you know that in the future, the nerds will rule the world?" Tadashi joked from the bridge chair as Coronamon and the others made their ways onto the bridge. The short-haired girl just rolled her eyes.

"Of course, _you _would say that," Miki shot back.

"So, how long can you hold this form?" Taizou asked his partner.

"For as long as I need to. Indefinitely, actually," the airship replied.

"Indefinitely?" Taizou asked, surprised at his partner's response to his earlier question.

"Yes, due to the fusion reactor inside of me, I can maintain this form for as long as possible," Zeppelinmon responded.

"Funny, this seems more like a spaceship than an airship," Ayaka commented. "I wonder what the rest of this thing is like."

"First things first, take us down to the planet as quickly as possible," Taizou ordered his partner, who acquiesced, heading straight for the planet at high speed. Since the digital world didn't have an atmosphere, he didn't have to worry about burning up in it. They made it down in record time and the digimon reversed thrusters in order to slow down as soon as they reached the lower atmosphere. The group looked down at the derelict world beneath them. They were flying over an abandoned city, it seemed. Or not quite abandoned, since all its inhabitants were killed by the D-Reaper more than a decade before.

"Wow, it looks like there was quite a civilization here," Ayaka remarked. "How sad."

Miki seemed to be affected by it as well. "It sure is."

"Any info on this city?" Taizou asked his partner.

"None. It is unnamed. I'm scanning the area but I can't find any signs anywhere that are legible."

"La Ciudad de los Muertos," Ed said. The others looked at him in confusion before he gave an explanation. "City of the Dead. It was supposed to be a setting in a game I was making with some of my friends. Unfortunately, I never got around to making it past the planning stage." He chuckled a bit. "This place just reminds me of that, that's all."

"That would take a lot of work," Taizou commented. "What was the team?"

"Me, my friends Gus and Mario, and my dad, who was working on the game engine. I guess it was difficult even for him," Ed chuckled at the thought.

"Your dad's a teacher, right?" Tadashi inquired and getting a nod.

"Yeah, he teaches at the local college." He hoped that by downplaying his dad's job, he could keep the blond from finding out who he was.

"Oh, okay. And where in America are you from again?" Tadashi asked, somewhat confused.

"Las Vegas, Nevada," Ed replied before heading towards the exit. "Now, if you're like me, you're all itching to find out what's in this place."

The others soon followed with the exception of Taizou, who was still working with his partner. "So, any signals from other digimon that you can detect?" the brown-haired boy asked his partner.

"About 12,000 kilometers from here there's a Mega-level signal along with some strange readings."

The brown-haired Tamer pulled out his digivice and looked at it, using it to see the area that his partner had indicated. There was a signal for a digimon alright along with a signal indicating a portal to another world.

"Set a course," Taizou ordered. He didn't know what this was, but he was going to find out.

###

Yamaki was surprised to see the heavy blond man in the meeting room. It was obvious who Kurita was related to and the director wondered if the man receiving a partner was partially due to his relationship with his brother.

The director glanced over the paperwork that Kurita had. Since he had just turned eighteen, he could now check for anonymity, which he did, meaning that his parents wouldn't have to know. Also, since he was eighteen, he most likely already had a savings account where his funds would go straight to.

The blond man in his thirties sat down across from Kurita and adjusted his sunglasses. The heavy teen finished his paperwork less than a minute later and looked up at the Hypnos director with a smile. "Hey, how's it going?"

"Good. Now, from what I understand, you received your partner from an unconventional source?" Yamaki asked, eliciting a nod from Kurita.

"Yeah, this guy showed up at my door and gave me a digi-egg, claiming to work for Hypnos. He said his name was Hideaki Nakamura," the blond teen explained.

"The name doesn't sound familiar, but I'll check the databases," Yamaki stated. "I would watch out for any suspicious individuals. You did the right thing by coming to me about it."

Kurita nodded. "Good to know."

"Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing who this man who gave you a partner is or how he got it in the first place, unless…" Yamaki shuddered at the thought.

"Unless, what?" Kurita asked after a few seconds.

"A scientist in Yokohama who was working with digimon research recently went missing. There's a chance that this may be connected to that," the Hypnos director suggested. "Satsuma is supposed to be working on the case; however he reached a dead end."

"So, you want me to help out?" Kurita deduced. "I gave you guys as thorough of a description of that dude as I could. I'm not sure that there's anything else I _can _do."

Yamaki nodded. "What you can do is let me know if you are ever contacted by that Nakamura figure ever again." Kurita smiled and gave a nod. The meeting was adjourned.

###

"Jackson, make a search for someone going by the pseudonym of Hideaki Nakamura. Apparently he gave Tadashi's brother a partner digimon," Yamaki ordered the American, who was working on an upgrade for the probe program. The suggestion startled the twenty-something-looking man, but he got to work immediately.

"Yes, sir." Then he thought of something that could work in his favor and get him a team of Tamers of his own. "Oh, and by the way, I think you should see something," he said, reaching toward his bag. Yamaki looked to see a certain red digimon with bat-ears.

"Gigimon?" the Japanese director questioned.

"Yeah, I just found him yesterday," Keith explained, leaving out that he had the digimon long before that. "He was just wandering around."

"We did detect one of those so-called rapid-burst bioemergences yesterday, so he may have come from that," Yamaki deduced. "Do you have a digivice?"

He wasn't ready to show the man his digivice just yet, so he lied, hating the number of sins he had to commit just to keep his identity a secret. "Not yet, but I'll keep on the lookout for one." The American had an uneasy smile.

"Good. If you don't get a digivice soon, we're going to have to take in this digimon for examination on the possibility that it may be Takato's partner, somehow having come home without him."

"Yes sir," Keith said before turning away from his boss with a bit of a glair. He continued to work on Yamaki's suggestion, knowing that he wouldn't find anything since he had simply made the name Hideaki Nakamura out of thin air. And the mention of a 'rapid-burst bioemergence' meant that they had detected his use of a computer to go to the digital world, meaning he would have to figure out a way of masking that if he was going to get any more Tamers. "Oh, and if I can keep Gigimon," the American started to say just as Yamaki was about to leave the room, "is there a chance I can join a team or something?"

The director was thinking of something. "I have an idea. How about you work with Kurita Nakabayashi? You two might do a good job of training each other using that training system you designed."

Keith looked over at the man in surprise as he left the room and shut the door behind him.

###

Ayaka sunk into the bath, feeling the warmth of the water cover her skin. She had wanted this for quite some time but due to Blimpmon not having any facilities other than a basic bathroom, she couldn't get it. So she sat there and relaxed, savoring the moment. Her friend Miki was on the opposite side of the bath, rubbing down any and all dirt while Syakomon swam underwater, only surfacing every so often. The only one who wasn't bathing was Salamon who was lying down on the tile next to her partner.

The blond savored the warmth, at least until Miki started talking. "So, what do you think of the new guys?" she asked.

"I haven't really talked to them that much, although Ed seems like a nice guy. Then there's Alice, who… Well, I don't know. She doesn't seem like the talking type." The blonde's face became downcast all the sudden. "I'm the most concerned about Gunter. I can't believe how cruel Marie had to be to first brainwash him and then screw up his mind so much. It's absolutely horrible what she did."

Miki didn't seem to want to hear all that, but she wasn't going to say it. "Yeah, no kidding. I just wish that there was a cute guy in the group."

The blonde glared daggers at her friend. "Is that all you think about? What everyone has to look like?"

"Come on, it's important to look good," Miki stated nonchalantly.

"The thing is that in the scheme of things that doesn't matter. In the end, we're all going to grow old and not look as good as we used to." Ayaka thought up another thing. "And besides, Gunter's not what I'd call bad-looking at all."

"Are you kidding? That guy looks like he's on steroids," Miki shot back.

"You don't know that. For all you know, he had to work really hard to get all that muscle. And, really, we don't know anything about him yet because of what Marie Cauvin did to him." The blonde's opinion was followed by a rather uneasy silence. Still, Miki didn't seem to get it and promptly got up out of the bath, carrying her partner with her. Before leaving, she turned toward Ayaka and spoke some more.

"Whatever you say, I'm not going to accept these guys just yet, except for maybe Alice." The dark-haired girl then walked into the nearby changing room, grabbing her towel on the way.

Ayaka just sighed. She didn't know what she was going to do with that girl. If Miki didn't change soon, she was just going to hurt the team.

###

On the bridge, Ed just sat and watched the landscapes fly by with Prokyomon on his shoulder. At the current rate, he calculated that they were going approximately 200 miles per hour. Alice sat nearby and spoke.

"So, I see you're not joining the others for a bath," the blonde said.

"I don't bathe with others." He paused for a second, realizing that comment wasn't accurate. "Okay, whenever my dad and I went to the gym, we would take showers toward the end, but I didn't like it that much and there were partitions that gave us privacy. And besides, I already took a bath just before heading to the Sovereigns' level."

Alice nodded. "I understand. It's not part of our culture." After a pause, she mused a bit. "I wonder why."

Ed shrugged. "Who knows? To be honest, it doesn't really matter that much."

"Yeah, you're right. At least you don't have to wash Gunter like Tadashi does," the blond said with a smile.

"Not for several days, at least. When I have to do that, I'll be wearing swim trunks," the black-haired boy said.

The duo paused for a couple seconds until Alice asked a question. "So, what was Gunter like before this… thing happened?"

Ed thought about it for a second. "He seemed like a pretty goofy guy but he was at least really nice. Basically he got all the way into the orphanage I was staying in and talked to me, asking me where I was from and everything. I told him the whole truth and he said he was going to go straight to the nearest payphone to get a hold of Echelon to come and retrieve me. After that, I didn't see him again and two days later I made the point to escape."

"And you think that Marie Cauvin captured him right away?" the blonde asked.

"More or less. I wouldn't be surprised if she did. Either that or the anti-digimon group that was connected to that orphanage got a hold of him." Ed thought about it all sadly. "It's horrible that something like this could happen to him. He was a teenager, just about in the prime of his life, and that was all taken away from him and now he has the intellect of a three-year-old. Marie is just despicable."

That was when he noticed Alice starting to fade. "Alice!"

She solidified. "Ed, what is it?"

"You were about to disappear," the black-haired boy said in a panic.

Then, suddenly, her hand started to fade again and she started to hear voices. "Ed, I think I'm returning home."

The chubby boy didn't quite believe it. "What if you're lost forever?"

"I won't be. You and the others, you gave me something to live for," the blonde told him. "Thank you, Ed."

He was still frozen with fear. "This can't be happening." Then he paused for a brief second, still not quite believing it, but wanting to do something anyway. "If you are going to the real world, can you do something for me?"

Alice heard even more voices and Prokyomon noticed, being afraid himself. "Yes, you may."

"Find my dad and tell him not to come to the digital world until I'm on the surface level," Ed said, remembering what Taizou had told him earlier about the Digimon Queen's hatred of his father.

"I'll try my best to remember that," the blond said just as the doors to the bridge opened and the others walked in, all shocked that she was starting to dissolve. "Thank you for everything."

"What's going on?" Tadashi asked, just as shocked as the others.

"She's waking up," Ed responded. "She's going home."

"Good-bye," she said before disappearing.

The whole team just stood there speechless. They couldn't believe what was happening.

"She's really gone?" Taizou asked.

"She did say she was going to the real world," Prokyomon replied. "I hope that was what really happened."  
"I hope so too," Ed told his partner.

###

In a hospital room, Alice's eyes opened for the first time in more than a year. She glanced at everyone around her from her parents to her grandparents on both sides. She also saw some more relatives and a couple of kids from school that she knew. Light was shining in from outside and it looked like it was a beautiful day.

She tried sitting up before being prevented from doing so by her grandfather. "Take it easy."

The girl looked at everyone and smiled. She didn't know why she took so long to go home, but here she was. "Grandpa, do you know someone named Antonio Guevara?" she asked, surprising Rob McCoy.

The man knew that what she was going to say was something sensitive, so he told everyone to get out for a couple of minutes, though her parents decided to stay instead.

"Antonio was a former student of mine while he was studying for his master's degree," the red-haired professor explained. "How could you possibly know who he is?"

"I met his son while I was in the digital world," the girl explained, surprising McCoy and her parents.

"Honey, chances are that that was just a dream," her father tried assuring her. "You have been in a coma for over a year."

Rob knew that something was up. There was something about her story that made him believe her. Plus, he had heard the reports from Takato's team in Shinjuku during the D-Reaper invasion about how she gave them the power to reach Mega. Then there was the case of how Shibumi spent some time in the digital world while he was in a coma himself.

"The fact that Antonio Guevara's son is in the digital world isn't common knowledge," the man said. "In fact, the information was deemed classified by every intelligence agency that detected him there."

His son had a shocked look on his face. "You mean you actually believe her?"

"Yes, under one condition. What is his son's name?" Rob asked, turning toward his granddaughter and looking her in the eye.

"Ed, short for Eduardo. His partner is Prokyomon, a raccoon-like digimon," she added the rest for emphasis.

"You don't mean... My baby!" Alice's mother embraced her daughter, frightened at the things she may have seen.

"Ed wanted his father to know that he shouldn't come to the digital world. He said that the Digimon Queen wants to destroy him," Alice told her grandfather point blank. The middle-aged man nodded.

"I'll make sure he gets the message, though he might not believe where it came from," Rob told her. "Still, I'm going to do whatever I can to prevent him from going there to get himself killed. His mission was cancelled as it was, but I wouldn't be surprised if he tried a fast one and went anyway." The man's eyes narrowed. "He was just reunited with his boy. He shouldn't have to go through this."

Alice felt a tear go down her face, feeling sorry for her friend as well as his father.

###

The airship landed right outside a pulsating purple energy field. This was the location of the mysterious digimon signal, and the team hoped they weren't committing suicide by doing this. They immediately got off Zeppelinmon, who stayed in his Ultimate form just in case they needed a quick getaway, walking down the ramp that led from the airship's cargo hold. The group moved along cautiously, heading straight for the shield.

On the other side was a giant of a digimon. He was humanoid, but had dark skin and golden armor along with a large, golden helmet that looked about twice the size of his head. The giant digimon was also carrying a massive sword made of gold and platinum.

Immediately, the energy field opened up and the Viking spoke with a thunderous voice. "I am Heimdallmon, guardian of the Dimensional Corridor. What do you seek?"

"Heimdallmon?" Taizou asked, pulling out his digivice and examining the new digimon. "Warrior Digimon, Vaccine Attribute, Mega Level. Attacks: Blade of the Valkyries and Odin's Judgment."

"The Dimensional Corridor? Can you send us back to the real world?" Ed asked, hopeful.

"No, I cannot," Heimdallmon responded, dashing the black-haired teen's hopes to pieces. Then again, he thought about how at least he was with a group of people who could act as a defense against Marie Cauvin. "The Dimensional Corridor only leads to other digital worlds."

Tadashi decided to ask something. "Did anyone come through here recently?"

"Ever since the D-Reaper invasion, only one digimon has passed through here, though she came back with more Digimon as well as humans," the guardian explained. "She needed help in her world and so she came here and recruited them."

"And you let her through, even though she kidnapped them?" Tadashi asked angrily.

"They seemed to be following Kuzuhamon willingly," the Viking stated, though the others suspected something else, something that they had seen way too much of lately: mind-control, something a powerful Mega like Kuzuhamon was more than capable of.

"Those humans were our friends," Taizou explained. He couldn't believe he was saying this since he hadn't wanted to go on this trip in the first place, but here he went. "We need to know what world they went into."

"Come, follow me," the digimon beckoned.

During the long walk up the mountain, Taizou had Zeppelinmon come up and de-digivolve to come with him, though he admittedly wished they would have taken the airship to wherever they were going instead. Ayaka held Gunter's hand while Coronamon held Keramon in his arms and Miki held Syakomon. Prokyomon was perched on Ed's shoulder like a parrot.

Eventually, the reached a building that looked like a temple. "Behold, the Dimensional Corridor," Heimdallmon said as they entered into the vast building. In the center of the large structure, there was a circle of circles, lines coming from a center circle going out along the wooden flooring, each glowing with numbers.

"Welcome to the multiverse," Ed mumbled under his breath.

"The world that your friends went to was World 2-4," the Viking explained. "However, sometimes dimensional travelers mask their paths and they may have gone to a different world after arriving in 2-4. As far as rules of dimensional travel, you aren't allowed to go to World 6."

"What's World 6?" Tadashi asked, curious.

"The Dark Ocean," Heimdallmon said with a sense of dread. "The world has been taken over by dark forces and, because of that, is quarantined."

"You've been there?" Yuji asked.

"No, but I've had to divert refugees from there while the D-Reaper controlled the digital world. As a Heimdallmon, I can't travel the multiverse." The powerful digimon felt a twinge of regret. "Instead, I'm here, stationed to prevent the multiverse from coming into danger. For instance, that shield that I had up earlier prevented the D-Reaper from coming here."

"It was that powerful, huh?" Taizou asked in surprise.

"Crazy," Ayaka commented, in awe about this place.

"So, can you send us to Digital World 2-4 so we can find our friends?" Tadashi asked the powerful digimon, eliciting a single nod.

"Yes, and I will send you there right now." The powerful guardian of the multiverse stabbed his sword into the glowing circle that was marked with the numbers two and four, creating a powerful stream of energy that flowed into a nearby archway. "It's time. You have a minute. May Yggdrasil bless your journey."  
The group then hurried their paces, heading straight into the gateway in pairs, but not without trepidation. The group of tamers was ready for whatever came their way, though.

This was when their journey truly began.

###

A/N: Complicated… Well, this ends the second arc. I'm probably going to follow up this chapter with a bit of a side chapter that patches up a few of the loose ends that have shown up so far. I don't want this to become a kudzu plot or something. That would suck. So far, though, I'm proud of what I've written. It's definitely one of my better stories. Possibly my best.

The next arc is going to be called the Two Emperors. I have to admit that when I initially planned this story, I was going to keep Tadashi's team in the real world for a little bit of extra time. The original second arc would have had them dealing with their reality's version of Ryouma from Xros Wars Hunters. I'm kind of glad it didn't pan out. Then the digital world would have been the third arc, but it became the second instead. And now the original third arc, which was going to involve fighting Sakkakumon in the Dimensional Corridor was altered to accommodate another plotline that I've been wanting to try out instead. Said Sakkakumon would have been an agent of the yet-to-be-revealed third member of the Triumvirate. At first, I was going to have Greg Schroder, a villain from the fic World Tournament, show up in that regard. However, I decided that there just aren't enough red-heads and that guy has brown hair (a color that just a bit too common in this fic in my opinion. Yeah… )

Plus, this new version of the third arc isn't going to introduce nearly as many characters as the original idea for it. Instead, Ayaka and Miki will get more focus.


	15. Shifting Sands

Chapter 15: Shifting Sands

###

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, just the few OCs in this fic.

###

Suzie was walking through Shibuya with her dark-haired older brother, Rinchei. She was really enjoying her day and was very happy to spend it with her brother as well as her partner. Rinchei actually looked a bit bored, though and was walking with her hunched over and with his hands in his pocket.

She missed Henry, though.

Still, it was nice that Rinchei took some time out to spend with her.

"Let's go to the pet store! Can we, Rinchei?" the girl asked excitedly as they walked past it. The eighteen-year-old suppressed a grimace at the thought. The store was bound to be awfully smelly and she knew they couldn't have any pets. Still, how could he refuse his little sister?

It was then that the little girl's digivice started to beep. "Maybe we should take care of that bioemergence, Suzie," Rinchei suggested.

"Okay! Let's just follow the digivice signal and go there!" the girl exclaimed, running off toward the signal as Rinchei followed her. He was definitely going to get a workout from this running, especially since it took them several minutes to reach the emergence site which was in a half-done construction site.

The duo ran into the digital field. "Rinchei, this is going to get _really _scary!" the girl warned playfully. The older teen just rolled his eyes as they walked through the fog, not buying it.

In the center of the field was a dragon-like digimon with purple fur and a ruby in the center of his forehead. Suzie used her digivice to see what digimon it was. "Dorumon, Rookie Level, Vaccine whatever that next word is… Go get him, Lopmon."  
"I don't think he wants to fight," Rinchei told his little sister.

"I think Rinchei's right," Lopmon said. As a matter of fact, the dark haired teen walked slowly toward the digimon, kneeling. "Come on, little guy. Come here."

At first, Dorumon was hesitant, but upon seeing that the teen wasn't going to hurt him, he walked toward him slowly and cautiously. Once the purple beast got up to him, Rinchei scratched the back of his ear. "That's not so bad, isn't it? My name's Rinchei," the teen told him.

"Dorumon…"

###

In the meantime, Jeri was spending time with Ai, Mako and Impmon. The group had gotten close ever since the other Tamers disappeared with the exception of Suzie. "So, then Beelzemon shot at the evil digimon and he exploded. It was so cool!" Mako bragged.

"Nah, it wasn't that awesome," Impmon corrected. The group was walking through a park.

"Are you kidding me? I wish I was there so I could see it," the six-year-old shot back. "Seeing it through my digivice wasn't good enough."

"Here's the thing, kid, I don't enjoy killing wild digimon," Impmon told his male partner. "And neither should you."

"He's right, Makoto," Ai told her brother.

Jeri smiled at Impmon. The little digimon had definitely changed since that time in the digital world. She definitely missed Leomon, but it was good to see Impmon make amends.

Then, as they were making their way to the nearest jungle gyms, the girl saw Tadashi all alone, skipping rocks on the edge of a small, artificial lake in the middle of Shinjuku Park. He made her worry. Ever since Eduardo Guevara was detected and confirmed to be the son of Antonio Guevara, the blond was starting to become a bit of a recluse, something that was starting to worsen ever since his brother and that American, Keith Jackson both received partners. Even the fact that they were both a couple levels below him in didn't help things.

"Hey, Tadashi!" the girl called out, waving. The blond got up and walked toward her, sporting a bit of a smile at the sight of her.

###

They waited by the jungle gym and talked as Ai, Mako and Impmon played. Jeri spent the time listening to her friend's problems. Despite his prejudices, the brunette kind of wanted more than a friendship, especially since Takato was gone, but she wasn't going to push it. He would make that step when the time came.

"So, anyway, I guess Professor Guevara's trip to the digital world to rescue his son was cancelled," Tadashi told her.

"I feel sorry for him," the girl replied.

"Well, I… I'm not sure what to think of that. You see, I wanted to go to the digital world and the Watchmaker said he would take us there when the time came. This seemed like the perfect excuse and since that Digimon Queen is there now, I guess it's too dangerous to go now." The blond paused for a few seconds. "Did you know Satoshi Terayama before he moved away?" Tadashi inquired.

"No, I didn't," Jeri responded.

"Well, I guess he's working with the Queen." The blond shook his head. "I can't understand why, either."

"You'll get to go someday," Jeri assured him. He smiled back slightly.

"Yeah, even if we have to fight that Queen chick all the way from over here. I guess her name is Marie Cauvin and she doesn't have any surviving parents or family, period. She ran into Antonio's son and fancied him so she followed him to the digital world after brainwashing a bunch of Tamers. You know, I hate that we have adults that are Tamers now."

Jeri was somewhat shocked that he would say that. "Don't worry about it. Besides, in five years, we'll all be adults too."

"Yeah, but I don't want to grow up. Childhood was way too short, okay," he started to shake his head. "And I hate that adults tell us all what to do. Now that there are tamers that are Adults, that's exactly what's going to happen and I know it."

"Don't worry. We can savor our teenage years," Jeri assured him. "It's not like we have to grow up right away. And besides, Kurita and Keith are on their own team."

"Yeah, I just hate the possibility." Tadashi frowned.

"How about this: What do you say we get a group together and go to my house this weekend?" Jeri suggested.

Tadashi thought for a couple minutes, still frowning. "Sure."

###

He was ready. His bag was all packed and he was ready to go to the digital world. He just needed to make a few phone calls.

After making calls to a number of team leaders, all of whom trusted him implicitly, he pulled his large duffle bag over his shoulder. "You prepared, Huckmon?" he asked the dragon-like digimon that was lying on his bed in a domineering tone.

"Yes, sir! It will be great to get back to the digital world," the digimon responded happily as he got up and started following his partner out of the house. This was the best time to get to the digital world since the boy's parents were currently out of town and getting to that portal would be a hitch. The skinny red-head made his way out of his house and toward the portal, arriving there after about ten minutes. Already, there was a team waiting for him along with his second-in-command, an obese twelve-year-old named Joey who had brown hair and glasses with thick rims.

"We are ready whenever you are, boss," the brown-haired boy said in a raspy voice. The red-head gave him a look with his blue eyes of disappointment.

"Where is Kyle's team?" he asked, annoyed.

"Nowhere to be found," Joey replied. "I don't think he took your use of blackmail seriously." The obese teen sneered.

"Figures. Oh well, good thing I posted those doctored naked pictures of him on the school's website already." Though those pictures were actually of Kyle's head on the body of an unflattering-looking picture the red-head got off the internet. Not that he goes on those websites other than for blackmail... "Oh well, I guess we have to go on without him. It's a shame too, since his partner as well as the Lucemon that that one fat kid has would have been really useful for this."

"We don't need those idiots. Don't worry about it," Joey replied, clenching his teeth.

The red-head gave him a mad look. "You're right, we don't. Not with all the teams headed for the digital world tonight." Then he spoke to the rest of the group. "Remember, you will all serve me, Roger Volkmann of the Triumvirate. To the digital world!"

"To the Digital World!" the group cheered as Roger headed into the portal.

From far nearby, another three Tamers watched. "This is bad, man," one of them commented, this one obviously prepubescent. "Really bad. We've got to do something."

"There's nothing we can do. Even if we took these guys out, there are a bunch of other teams going to the Digital World," another voice, one that had authority responded. "Plus, if we took him out, he would pin the blame on us. He's got too good of a reputation."

"If you tell me, this guy's a douche," a third, far raspier voice spoke. "We have to do something while this dirtbag's not in the Digital World or else things are going to go bad. And didn't you hear? He's already got allies there!"

The second Tamer thought about it for a second. "I know. You know, this makes me wish the original Tamers of Shinjuku were around. At least they can reach Mega."

"So, did he really get naked pictures of you Kyle?" the first Tamer asked.

"He probably photoshopped my head onto a girl's body or something like that. I wouldn't put it past him. Don't worry about, though." Kyle thought about things for a second before thinking of the person who gave him his partner in the first place. "We need to find Mr. Immortal. He should be able to help."  
###

Keith Jackson was enjoying the training session he was having with Gigimon and Kurita's partner Liollmon. The heavy boy had finally gotten his partner to the Rookie level just that morning when Gigimon turned out to be too tough to handle.

"So, are we done?" Gigimon asked his Tamer, panting as they finished the session of a mock battle.

"Yeah, we're done." Keith turned toward his training partner, barely noticing a third Tamer come up through the elevator with a purple-furred digimon by his side.

"That's it for the day, huh?" Kurita asked, picking up Liollmon as he walked toward his new friend.

"Yeah, more or less," the blond American responded before hearing a beep on his digivice. He pulled the device out of his pocket and saw that he had an e-mail through one of his accounts. _Strange, nobody's supposed to use that account except for emergencies. _He read the e-mail, his eyes getting wide as saucers.

"Kurita? Is that you?" Kurita turned around to see Rinchei walking up to him.

"Oh, hey, bud, how's it going?" the blond man asked his acquaintance from school.

"Not bad, I guess. I got a partner the other day while taking care of a bioemergence with my baby sister," the bother of Henry Wong replied.

"That's crazy." Kurita smiled and kneeled down to talk to the purple-furred beast next to his friend. "So, what's this little guy's name?"

"My name's Dorumon and don't you forget it!" the digimon snapped.

"Oh, sorry. Good to meet you anyway," the large blond responded before turning toward his other friend who seemed to be sending a video message through his digivice and was speaking in rapid-fire English of some dialect he couldn't understand. Or maybe it wasn't English. Kurita tried guessing the language, which sounded to him like a cross between Spanish and German phonology-wise but with far more consonant clusters. He had to guess that it was some sort of Slavic language, possibly Russian, though he couldn't swear to that since the only Slavic language he had much exposure to in the past was Czech as spoken by some immigrants living in Germany when he went there a couple years before.

"So, what's going on?" Kurita asked his friend when he finished talking.

"Not much. You mind going on a trip with me?" Keith asked with a bit of a smile.

"Where are you going to go? Russia?" Rinchei asked.

"Well, I was going to go talk to a couple of other Tamers. It turns out there's a situation in the digital world right now and someone we know in common is involved."

###

Inside the digital world itself, the various teams that served Roger had arrived in the area surrounding the Queen's citadel. The red-haired leader of those groups was heading straight into the citadel's meeting room along with his partner, Huckmon, who seemed rather nervous about the whole thing. Also, his right-hand man was with him as well, his partner Mercurymon trailing behind.

After rolling his eyes at the burly guards in the room, Roger sat down at the table.

"It's about time you showed up. I was wondering if you really existed or if Crimson had just made everything up about you," the Digimon Queen said with a smile. Roger found her French accent incredibly sexy, so he smiled.

"Yeah, well, I'm here. So, what's the plan to take over the digital world?" Roger asked.

"First, your title?" Crimson requested.

"Oh, that's easy. Kami no Hi. God of fire."

"Dude, that means Fire of God, not God of Fire," the goateed Tamer corrected since he absolutely hated it when foreigners butcher his native tongue. "The correct term would be Hi no Kami or Hinukamui, if you want to really say Fire God."

"Then again, he already has a number of titles such as 'Tamer of the Americas', if I remember right," the Digimon Queen commented. "You're quite the celebrity."

The red-head thought about it for a second. Then he remembered that there was someone that wasn't around to actually use his title. With a grin, he spoke. "I know what I'll call myself: the Legendary Tamer."

"Stealing Ryo's title, I see?" the Digimon Queen asked. "I like it. By the way, before you join the team, there is something I want to see."

"And what's that?" Roger asked.

Suddenly, and without provocation, Joey took off his shirt, much to Roger's horror. "Take him out from under your spell immediately!" the American ordered the Queen and immediately Joey put his shirt back on before the mind control was ended.

"What just happened?" Joey asked the group.

"Oh, I just thought I'd put on a little show for myself. That's all," the Queen replied, much to the annoyance of the other two members of the Triumvirate.

"I think it's time we laid some ground rules," Crimson suggested, sitting back and hating that the Queen did something that almost destroyed their pact.

"Yeah, first off, there's going to be no controlling any of my Tamers unless I authorize it!" Roger yelled.

"Okay, I'll keep that in mind. So, when will you authorize it?" the Queen inquired.

"Maybe I'll use it as a punishment for when they fail missions," he said.

"Sounds like a good idea to me," the queen replied. "Still, I wouldn't mind seeing your friend Joey here naked at least once. Do that and it's a deal."

"He's twelve you old pervert!" Roger yelled again.

"You know, lady, you were the one who told me you were under-age when I hit on you, remember?" Crimson asked calmly.

Joey was glaring at the Queen with so much vitriol that it was amazing the woman's hair didn't set on fire or something. "Okay, fine, you have a point. None of that."

Roger could already tell he wasn't going to have fun working with this girl. "So, how old are you, anyway?"

"Fourteen. You?"

"Sixteen," the skinny red-head replied.

"See, our age differences aren't too bad," the queen teased. "But if you insist, then it's a deal."

"Deal!" Roger exclaimed.

"Deal," Crimson said quietly, getting ready for the next part of his agreement.

###

Antonio bolted upward upon hearing the doorbell ring, putting on his bathrobe and running straight to the door. _Maybe he's back. Maybe…_ His thoughts were interrupted when he opened the door and got Keith Jackson along with two other guys.

"Wait, what are you doing here?" the large Chilean man asked the blond. "And did you lose weight?" Then he realized he wasn't dressed. "Let me go put something on. Make yourself at home."

Antonio ran into the room as everyone else entered into his living room and sat down. He put on a green shirt and some long, beige pants. "I'm so sorry about that, by the way."

"By the way, these are Kurita and Rinchei,"

"Good to meet you guys. Sorry you saw more of me than you wanted to. So, Mr. Immortal, you've got a lot of explaining to do."

"Immortal?" Kurita asked.

"Actually, it's _Mr. Immortal_, but oh well, not that it matters. I currently go by Keith."

"And Keith's not your real name? What are you, like the Doctor or something? Is your name a source of shame for you?" Rinchei inquired jokingly.

Keith looked at the guy with surprise. "What? How would you know about the end of Series 6? The revived series hasn't even started yet."

"Hey, it's a popular theory," the skinny Japanese guy replied. "So, you're from the future or something?"

"A future. It's gone now," Mr. Immortal replied. "And if you're wondering, I'm actually closer to a companion of the Doctor than the Doctor himself. Kind of like Jack Harkness, but asexual instead."

"You've never been in any kind of relationship?" Kurita asked in shock.

"Nope. You see, in order to avoid the heartache of living for hundreds of years while anyone I get involved with is bound to die, I basically decided to stay celibate," Keith explained. "I've had lots of friends over the years, though, and it is kind of interesting to see what everybody's decedents are like, so living forever isn't too much of a drag. Plus, think of all the things I get to learn." By the end of his little explanation, the guy was actually smiling.

"Yeah, he's crazy like that. And, I take it your current look is only a hologram," Antonio guessed.

"Yeah, you're absolutely right."

"Soooo, what _do _you really look like?" Rinchei inquired.

"I'll show you but you're going to have to keep everything in this room a secret from now on," Keith explained, somewhat nervous.

"Dude, if I told the government, they'd probably dissect you simply _because _you're immortal," the skinny Japanese guy assured him.

"Yeah, man, I'm with Rinchei," Kurita added.

Keith altered a few things on his digivice and his form changed from a bespectacled and nerdy scientist to one of a hairy Olympic weightlifter without glasses. He even had the same large nose; he was just considerably larger, muscle-wise, despite being the same height.

"Holy crap, look at those muscles," Kurita gasped in shock.

"Okay, now back to the whole thing. Guess what? Roger Volkmann just took an army to the Digital World," Mr. Immortal told Antonio, who reacted in shock.

"What? You have got to be kidding me," the large Chilean said in response, shaking his head. "Somehow I knew that guy was bad news."

"Yeah? He seemed trustworthy at the time, but I guess appearances can be deceiving."

The other two Tamers seemed rather confused by the whole thing. "Uh, what's going on, exactly?" Kurita spoke.

"Roger Volkmann, along with a Japanese guy named Satoshi Terayama helped Antonio and I during the D-Reaper invasion against a powerful Digimon named TysiachaGlazkovmon. There were a number of Mega-levels there as well and Roger and Satoshi both partnered themselves with two of them." Keith narrowed his eyes. "From the look of it, both Roger and Satoshi have made a pact with the malevolent Tamer who calls herself the Digimon Queen."

"She stole Rika's title? Couldn't she have come up with something original?" Rinchei asked getting looks from the rest of the group. "Okay, I'll admit that the Digimon Empress is probably used all the time in fanfic, but it would be better than jacking the title from somebody else."

"Personally, I think that's the least horrible thing about this lady," Keith said. "In fact, I'd say she's after Antonio's son specifically."

"And how did you figure that out?" the Chilean Tamer inquired.

"I examined the Tamers in her inner sanctum. They all have similar body types to you and your son. Then there's the case that the Digimon Queen came from the same orphanage your son was being held at. Believe me; I have a _lot _of spare time at Hypnos."

"So, I take it you want us to help defeat these guys?" Rinchei asked, smiling.

"Not until we get some experience. Hmm…" Keith's thoughts were interrupted by Antonio.

"What about you. Can't you get your partner to Mega anymore?" the larger man asked the Immortal.

"No, I can't. It seems that, despite being an egg again, TysiachaGlazkovmon's conversion of him into one of his slaves damaged his data so I have to start all over again and get his level back up to at least Ultimate again." Keith put his chin on his fists and gritted his teeth. "It's all so unfair."

"Well, we'll have to plan something. Saxum and Echelon both cancelled my trip to the digital world," Antonio told his friend before giving him a look.

"No, you are _not _going to the digital world alone. You're going to have to have a team and a strong one at that, end of story," Mr. Immortal told the Chilean.

"Maybe Tadashi's team," Kurita suggested.

"Out of the question," Antonio told the blond man. "Number one: they're underage. Number two: they have duplicates in the Digital World."

"Not anymore," Keith objected. "It turns out that they left the digital world to parts unknown about twelve hours ago."

"Wait, what do you mean duplicates?" Kurita asked, confused.

"They're temporal duplicates created by time travel. You can thank the Watchmaker for that one," Mr. Immortal explained. "Okay, this is what we'll do: we'll evacuate some of our allies to the real world from the digital world such as Daemon. Then we'll train for the next month or so before finally breaking into the digital world to beat the living tar out of Satoshi and Roger as well as Marie, the Digimon Queen."

"Sounds like a good plan to me," Kurita said.

"I would rather go as soon as possible, but with these armies, I guess we have no choice," Antonio said, not entirely resigned to the fact that his son is currently in a world with those duplicates.

"I'll come along as well," Rinchei said.

"Now, are you both eighteen?" Antonio asked, getting nods from both teenagers. "Good."

"I made sure they were before coming here, Tony," Keith responded. "So, I guess we'll head back."

Antonio nodded. "You using that digital bridge program you designed?" the large Chilean asked.

"I didn't design it. You did," Mr. Immortal said before they moved toward the door.

###

After arriving at Keith's apartment, the group hung out together and talked. "So, how long were you planning on waiting to tell us that you were some sort of time-traveling immortal?" Kurita inquired, a bit peeved.

"I only share that fact with either my closest friends or my teammates," Mr. Immortal said. "Same with my real name, especially since I have a temporal duplicate living in the United States. Wouldn't want anybody to go after him because of me."

Rinchei nodded. "Yeah, that's probably a bummer," he said while getting up and turning on the DVD player to put in a movie. "So, how old are you, anyway?"

"As ancient as the pyramids," he said, though the two Japanese guys couldn't tell whether he was joking or not.

"How many millennia?" Kurita inquired out of curiosity.

"Not telling," the American said with a cheesy smile.

###

Alice was definitely getting used to living again. She wasn't adjusting too well, though, and she would have to take the seventh grade a year late, but she didn't find the adjustment too horrible, especially since her grandfather decided to take a couple days off from work at Echelon to spend time with her.

"Now what would you like to do?" the red-head asked her as he drove her through San Francisco in his truck.

"Hmm… I don't know. I know Ed was born in Lancaster. Maybe we can go there," she suggested.

"Lancaster's a ways away. So, did you like Ed?" Rob McCoy asked her.

"As a friend, yes, nothing more. And sheesh, Grandpa, I'm only thirteen," the blonde teased.

Professor McCoy couldn't help but smile at his granddaughter. Just then, though, his cell-phone rang and he pulled over to answer it, seeing it was work. He answered it and it turned out that Babel was on the other line. "Hello?"

_"Professor McCoy, it's a bit of an emergency. We just got intel back from a number of our Tamers such as Kyle Dibenko and Mr. Immortal and it turns out that one of our best, Roger Volkmann has gone rogue."_

Rob's eyes narrowed. "And what is he up to? Be quick, since I'm spending the day with my granddaughter," he ordered, irritated that they would be calling him with such information.

_"We're talking about the number one Tamer in America. And it turns out that he convinced a bunch of other Tamers to join him in the Digital World. Also, according to Mr. Immortal, he has teamed up with two other Rogue Tamers that are already there."_

McCoy was glad that he had pulled over since there was no way he could possibly drive listening to this. He wiped his sweat off his brow and continued to speak. "You mean that he joined forces with the Digimon Queen and Crimson?"

_"That's right. And they've started an invasion of the western Digital World." _The red-haired man just sat in silence as Babel relayed all the information they had at the moment.

"Okay, I'll come in later on today. For now, though, keep an eye on this guy. Worst come to worst, we'll gather a team of our best Tamers and send them to take care of the Triumvirate."

_"The thing is that Mr. Immortal has already gathered a team of five, all adults. Unfortunately, two of them are still in training. He plans on heading straight into the digital world in a month."_

"Where are these all from?" Rob asked.

_"Two from Japan and one from Chile, not counting Mr. Immortal. The fifth's from Spain."_

"And I take it Mr. Immortal is in Japan? Why don't you have him bring Rentarou Satsuma with him as well?"

_"That would be a good suggestion, especially since Inspector Satsuma has a pair of Tamers working with him directly, both adults as well."_

Rob smiled. "Okay, then, have a nice day."

_"You too."_

Although Professor McCoy wanted to have someone help out in the digital world, he realized that technically it was out of Echelon's jurisdiction and he couldn't really do much about it. However, he realized the threat that a group of Rogue Tamers had, and was willing to make concessions at the right time.

It was a few minutes before he finally spoke to his granddaughter again. "So, let's go to Oxnard."

"Lancaster," Alice corrected. "Though, come to think of it, Ed did mention having cousins in Oxnard. I wonder how much of a family resemblance there is," the blonde girl told him, scratching her chin.

Rob was glad to have her back, especially since it was starting to get a little bit too dangerous where she was.

###

Kurita plopped himself on the bed, wearing what he normally wore for bed, namely a white t-shirt and boxers. He was glad that the day was over with and was definitely a little exhausted from it. The truth was that it was all a lot to take in and he had a hard time believing that his newest friend could possibly be some immortal Tamer, or at least a very long lived one that was stranded in the past by the very man that his brother Tadashi had been searching for off and on.

Speaking of a certain blond, Tadashi opened up the door and walked in. "So, how was your day of training?" the blond inquired.

"Alright, but tiring." In fact, Liollmon was already fast asleep in the corner on top of Kurita's rather full clothes hamper. "Keith's partner is still at the In-Training level but I wouldn't be surprised if that digimon digivolves really soon."

Tadashi snorted. "I can't believe that guy's got a partner, and he's got Takato's partner of all things."

"Come on, bro, we don't know that. For all we know he'll digivolve into something completely different," Kurita told him. "In fact, that's what he thinks might happen."

"Something different? Like what?" Tadashi asked, curious and doubting.

"He hasn't said yet," Kurita told his younger brother. "So, anything new, bro?"

"Well, my team faced another Ultimate today, though the only one of us who got there in time was Ayaka and she ended up digivolving her partner herself. Can you believe it, man? I thought I was the leader here!" Tadashi's description seemed like more of a rant than anything. Kurita wondered what was with his younger brother. He seemed to be getting more and more cynical now for some reason and Kurita didn't like that one bit.

"Well, just think of it this way, little guy. At least you have an Ultimate on your team other than Suzie's partner now. Also, look on the bright side, you have something to work towards," the far larger teen told his younger brother.

Tadashi grimaced in response. "Yeah, I guess." Then the boy turned and walked out the door.

Kurita took a deep breath. He hoped that his brother didn't end up doing anything foolish.

He glanced at his orange digivice that bore a white ring around its center screen and wondered how the other Tadashi that Keith had mentioned was like.

He could only hope that he was doing better than his brother here in this world.

###

The truth was that Gigimon was starting to act a little weird. For one thing, he was eating like a pig and had completely cleaned out Keith's fridge, completely ruining the guy's somewhat strict, high-protein diet. Keith hoped that this was merely a sign that his partner was on the verge of digivolution and not getting fat.

It turned out the first assumption was the case. At one point, his partner just arched upward, as if a round digimon like him could do that.

"Gigimon, what's wrong, man?" the muscular blond asked his partner, wearing much the same outfit that Kurita was.

The digimon's eyes went wide before he started to glow.

"Gigimon digivolve to…"

This was the moment of truth for Keith. Was Anubimon's assumption about his partner's digivolution line being the same as it used to be correct or would his partner turn into another Guilmon.

The truth of the matter was that it turned into an almost totally different digimon than Takato Matsuki's partner, not even close. Heck, it didn't even turn into a BlackGuilmon. About the only thing that it had in common with Guilmon was that it was a small red dragon, although it was definitely a lot smaller than Takato's red dino and had no hazard symbol on his body. He had a v-shaped head and a microphone in one hand. "… Shoutmon!"

The dragon looked at his Tamer, who smiled in mirth. "You digivolved. Congratulations."

Shoutmon gave his partner a thumb's up. "Yeah, that's was bound to happen sooner or later."

"You remember anything from before you were an egg?" Keith asked, hopeful.

The small red dragon thought about it for a second, scratching his chin, before he spoke. "Not a thing."

The blond man let his arms down in frustration. He was worried that his partner would never remember what the two of them went through together. In response, Keith got up and went to the bathroom, leaving a somewhat shocked Shoutmon in his wake. As soon as he shut the door, he broke down in tears at the thought that the one person he was with almost his entire life couldn't remember a thing about the past, turning on the shower to prevent his partner from hearing him.

He didn't know how he was going to survive with his partner being the way he was.

###

_He remembered the first time he met his partner. It was an average day at school and suddenly a plume of smoke appeared in the middle of the field during PE class._

_ He knew exactly what was going on from frequenting all those Digimon message boards: there was a digimon emerging there. The blond decided to go there. He was thirteen and wearing gym clothes consisting of a white shirt with a thunderbird on it and a pair of red pants. He didn't know what to expect, but he ran toward the digital field like his life depended on it, even though the digimon that emerged might actually be hostile._

_ Instead of a hostile digimon, he came across an unfamiliar red dragon who eyed him with curiosity. He was a shy person, though, and he had a hard time saying anything, so the rookie spoke up in his place._

_ "My name's Shoutmon. What's yours?" the digimon asked, smiling. In response, the blond gave the digimon his name._

_ "So, what brings you to my world?" the blond inquired nervously._

_ "Well, I just escaped the wrath of an extremely powerful digimon. The Sovereigns actually sent me here to get a partner, just in case the Tamers can't beat this guy," the red dragon explained rather cheerfully considering he had just been kicked out of his world._

_ "Well, I hope we can be friends," the blond said with a smile, surprised that he hit it off with such a digimon so quickly._

_ "Yeah, definitely!" Shoutmon exclaimed, shaking his new friend's hand._

_ All the sudden, a sphere of light appeared in mid-air, forming a red and blue digivice. The blond immediately grabbed hold of it and looked at his partner's info._

_ "Shoutmon, Rookie Level, Vaccine Attribute, Small Dragon Digimon." Shoutmon's Tamer chuckled. "I can't believe it. I'm actually a Tamer."_

_ The fog started to lift and the new Tamer noticed everyone from his class looking on in surprise. "Well, little buddy, I guess you're going to have to get out of here before someone tries to kidnap you or something," the blond joked, but the red dragon was already running from the crowd that ran after him. It seemed that everybody wanted to be a Tamer._

_ "Man, what was that?" one of the guys that _didn't _chase after Shoutmon asked. He had short, curly, light blond hair and blue eyes._

_ "His name is Shoutmon and he's my partner," the new Tamer boasted with a grin._

###

Yamaki's reaction to the news that an American Tamer, quite possibly the most powerful one other than Mr. Immortal, had gone rogue was a lack of sleep. As it was, sleep was eluding him quite a bit these days with everything happening from the disappearance of most of the core group of Tamers including the only ones that could reach Mega to Kurita receiving a partner from an unknown source to his upcoming wedding to Riley.

He hoped that Takato's team could get back in time for that, especially since there were still a couple of months before the blond Japanese man finally got hitched.

Still, everything was getting to be a bit too much for the man. In some ways he wanted a promotion so he wouldn't be dealing with all this stuff quite so much. The blond got up out of bed and walked out of his room, wearing dark blue pajamas. He put on his sunglasses for some reason and then brewed some decaf tea all while thinking about everything. He wondered where all the pieces fit.

In fact, he wondered if in fact the American Tamer known only as Mr. Immortal was the one that gave Kurita his partner in the first place. Maybe Mr. Immortal even gave Keith his partner. There were far too many questions and not enough answers. All Yamaki knew about Mr. Immortal from Echelon's files on him was pretty bizarre. The man normally when by the name of Carmine Reed, however, he went by a large number of aliases, not all of which were known by Echelon. The Tamer also had a Shoutmon for a partner, a digimon that wasn't in any of Hypnos' databases.

The blond man sighed at the whole thing, wondering when any of it would make sense.

###

A/N: As for Roger, he's probably the least sympathetic member of the Triumvirate since Saito/Crimson is a well-intentioned extremist and Marie/Queen would be a normal girl if it hadn't been for Coonmon nurturing her worst desires into something horrifying. Roger's just a bored rich kid who used his prestige to convince a host of other Tamers to join him.

And then there's Keith/Carmine/Mr. Immortal, the Watchmaker's former companion. I'm actually working hard to prevent him from taking over the story and he won't appear again until Chapter 19. I'm also trying my best to prevent him from turning into a Gary Stu. Hopefully I can do that. To be honest, the OC that he resembles the most to me was Shaun from Adventure 02: A Revision, who despite having massive Gary Stu traits, ended up getting deconstructed like crazy toward the end. Thankfully Mr. Immortal can't reach Mega like Shaun did. Also, his immortality wasn't intentional and will get a good explanation. Plus there's that whole can't have a relationship ever rule that he inflicted on himself…

I almost deleted the scene of shirtless Joey Krenzel (agh! The agony!) There was also a scene in the last chapter that didn't make it, though all it established was that Taizou's mom was a nurse. Hopefully I'll be able to get out of this habit of inserting random scenes of Fan Disservice… *shudders*


	16. The Foreign World

Chapter 16: The Foreign World

###

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, just the OCs scattered about this fic.  
###

Ayaka felt the cool breeze of the latest in a string of new Digital Worlds that they've gone through, taking in the fresh air as the group walked made their way out of the latest portal they've opened. She was starting to feel a bit groggy, though, and wasn't sure how much longer she'd be moving forward. She wasn't the only one who felt that way as she stepped onto the damp green grass.

"Dude, can we stop for the night. I feel like I could pass out any second," Yuji complained, eliciting a glare from Tadashi.

"Come on, we just need to make our way to the next Dimensional Corridor." The blond then yawned himself. "It will only take a couple more hours."

"I'll have to admit, it's been a while since we've slept at all," Taizou remarked, scratching his chin. "I know in our Digital World, we didn't have to eat or sleep, but everywhere else it seems like it's the opposite."

As if on cue, Gunter's stomach started to growl. "Ich habe hunger," the large German said.

"Okay, we'll stop, eat and sleep, but first thing tomorrow morning, we'll head straight for that Corridor, got it?" Tadashi asked the group.

"I'm fine with that," Yuji said, dropping to the ground and sitting back. After a few seconds, the long-haired boy was out cold.

"What about keeping watch?" Ayaka asked Tadashi.

"I'll do that for the first hour and then you can do that for the second. We'll take turns," the blond suggested.

"Sounds like a good idea to me," the pig-tailed girl said with a smile.

"I guess I'll go and look for some fruit or something," Ed volunteered, walking off with Prokyomon.

"So, any digivice signals for this world, Taizou?" Tadashi asked his friend, who was sitting down as well. It was twilight and the stars were starting to appear. The brown-haired boy pulled out his digivice and looked at the radar function, stretching it out to encompass the entire digital world.

"There are about five of them about five hundred kilometers from here," Taizou responded. "Checking the data… Whatever they are, they aren't D-Arcs and, aha! The information on them shows that they aren't even Japanese, judging from their names."

Tadashi cursed under his breath. This was the fourth world that they've gone through but there still wasn't any sign of Takato or his team and he really wasn't looking forward to another long trek through another world just to find its dimensional corridor.

He lied back and looked at the vast, starry heavens, thinking about what they left behind and what they were looking for, hoping that soon this part of the journey would be over and that Takato and the others would be able to come back to their world to kick the butts of Marie and Crimson.

###

Ed wandered around a little bit. He had a bag with him from his time on Zeppelinmon, and now was trying to fill it with as much fruit as possible. Actually, Prokyomon was doing most of the gathering. He was just checking out the area.

That was when he found some glyphs on the wall. _Those look almost like some I saw in Oppidum Septentrionale_, he thought, pulling out his notebook to mark them all down. Then he realized where else he had seen the glyphs.

He pulled his toy D-Terminal out of his laptop bag and opened it up. The symbols matched the alphabet that was on the toy.

"Let's see…" he said, "This symbol is an 'I'. This one is an 'M'." He was beginning to unravel it.

After a few minutes, he figured the whole thing out. Or he at least transliterated it. Unfortunately, he also wrote it in all capital letters and ran the words together. However, he was starting to notice the different words.

"Imperator… Emperor. I don't know what Symanski means. That must be a name. Let's see… Clavis… That's similar to Spanish _clave _or the more common _llave, _key. And dimensionalis must mean dimensional or dimension. Then the last word, _est. _Looks like Spanish _es _crossed with German _ist. _Is. Unscramble the word order and I get 'Emperor Symanski is the Dimension Key' or something along those lines. Wait, does Latin _have _a word for 'the'?"

Then he looked at the next line and was more than a little confused.

"Okay, I guess this is going to be a little more difficult than I expected," he thought out loud to himself. "I wonder who this Emperor Symanski is and what the heck the Dimension Key is supposed to be." He mused for a few seconds before he got up, grabbed the heavy bag that was filled to the brim, and headed back to camp, muttering what he read.

However, when he was about halfway back with Prokyomon, he spotted something utterly unexpected. Okay, maybe it wasn't completely unexpected, since it is the Digital World after all. Still, seeing a working TV set in the middle of the meadow was definitely an unusual sight and Ed had to stop and look at it. He dropped his fruit, pressed a button and saw the inside of a dark room.

"What do you think it is?" Prokyomon asked, just as curious as Ed was.

"Looks to me that this leads to somebody's bedroom in the real world," the black-haired teenager said before pointing to a spot on the television. "I think that's a bed right there, though it doesn't look like anybody's using it. Maybe they're out of town or something." Ed chuckled a little bit.

"Let me guess, you want to explore it?" Prokyomon asked, his eyes nearing in weariness. His partner was definitely curious about what was on the other side and held up his digivice to the screen, remembering the way the kids traveled between worlds on Adventure 02. He chuckled at the ridiculous notion.

"Yeah, right. As if this would work. Digiport Open!"

And they were sucked in by a white light.

###

Landing in the middle of that bedroom on his feet with his partner on his shoulder, Ed walked over and turned on the light. He tried being as quiet as possible, not knowing whether anybody was at home or not. Thankfully, the door was already shut. The teen looked around and saw a basic bedroom. There was a bed against the wall across from the computer desk with black sheets, a pair of bookshelves, one on each side of the desk, and a few pictures here and there of who Ed would have assumed was the family of the room's owner. Ed looked around and noticed a note on the dresser which was right next to the door. He glanced at it, knowing it was definitely English. He also noticed that all of the books on the shelves were in English too, ranging from simple story books and novels to books on quantum physics and computer programing.

For the heck of it, Ed read the note. "To David: If you are reading this and have come home, please stay. We worry about you so much. Love, Mom, Dad and your sister." He paused, before hearing something on the other side of the door. Panicking, he ran straight to the computer and held his digivice out.

"Digi-port Open!"

He was sucked into the computer just as the door opened.

###

She had been sleeping for a few hours when she heard a noise across the hall coming from her brother's room. Getting up, she grabbed her D-3 and warily walked over to the door. She heard someone speaking on the other side, reading that note that she left for David.

Except the voice wasn't his.

She wondered if her brother somehow got someone else to start working for him. Still, there was an intruder in the house. So, she grabbed the doorknob and started to turn it.

As soon as she started to open the door, whoever was in her brother's room apparently freaked out and shouted. "Digi-port Open!"

She opened the door and there was nobody inside, even though the light was on, something that wasn't the case. As it was, she didn't want whoever this person was to see her the way she was dressed, wearing only a tank-top and some panties.

The brunette ran back to her room to put on her glasses before heading back into her brother's room. She looked at the digi-port program and noticed the screen showing a grassy meadow. She checked the location and it was nowhere near the Digimon Emperor's domain.

Still, she was curious about who was in here, so she checked the web-cam feed and had it stop recording. She then checked the end of the latest video of this room to see who it was. When she saw a heavy teen with black hair and a black shirt, she was disappointed, actually wishing that someone good-looking was in the room instead. At least that meant that she would have someone pleasant to look at.

The girl took a deep breath. She then glanced at the guy some more. He had a brown raccoon on his shoulder which she assumed was a digimon. From what she gathered, the guy was most likely European, probably of Hispanic, Italian or Irish decent, though he could easily be a light-skinned Arab. The accent was definitely American, possibly Canadian if she stretched it.

She decided to run a search for someone with his looks using a still. She couldn't find any exact matches.

Giving up, she started the recording on the web-cam again and put the computer in sleep mode before turning the light off. She couldn't shake the image of that mysterious, black-haired boy from her head, though, nor could she get rid of the image of his cute, brown raccoon friend.

###

Ed arrived at camp in record time after that little excursion, locking eyes with Tadashi, who was still on watch. "Where were you?"

"Getting food." He wasn't going to tell them he went to the local human world just yet, instead opting to drop to the ground after putting the bag of fruit and his computer bag on the ground as well. The black-haired boy was definitely a bit pooped from staying up so long. He was surprised to find himself on the same sleep schedule as the others, though, probably a symptom of leaving their digital world at the same time.

###

Later on in the night, Salamon woke up to distant noises and so did Prokyomon apparently. "Did you hear something?" the small dog asked the raccoon.

"Yeah…" The digimon listened even more. Something was definitely coming. Looking in the distance, the raccoon saw some birds flying off, apparently escaping from something.

And surprisingly enough, nobody was on watch. Yuji was supposed to be on watch, but the boy was fast asleep instead and so was his partner, which was strange. So, taking action, Prokyomon shouted at the top of his lungs. "Everybody, wake up, something's coming!"

Ed woke up first, groggily, followed by Gunter, which was unusual, since the large German was normally fast asleep. "What's going on?" the black-haired boy asked his partner.

"Salamon and I heard something," the raccoon said. Deciding to follow up on his partner's observations, Ed pulled out his digivice and looked at it, searching for the digivice signals. The signals were all in the same place. However, there was a large amount of Digimon heading toward them along with weird signals appearing in certain places that were black on his digivice.

The teen noticed that the others were starting to get up as well, probably getting egged on by Salamon and Prokyomon's obsessive shouting.

"Guys, can you stop it? I'm trying to sleep," Tadashi complained.

"What's that noise?" Coronamon asked, notice the same noise that Prokyomon and Salamon did.

Ed looked in the direction of the noise, which he was starting to hear now. "Guys, I think we should get moving," he told the rest of the group, allowing his partner to repeat what he said to those that didn't understand him.

"What? Come on, are you sure you're not overreacting?" Miki asked.

"The digivice signals are in the same place," Taizou said, looking at his digivice. "There are a lot of digimon headed this way, but it could just be a coincidence."

"Taizou, what are the names of the Tamers in this world?" Ed inquired.

"Let's see, Cynthia Hall, Robert Battaglia, Stephanie Manzanares, David Symanski and Angela Rodriguez," the brown-haired teen read off his digivice.

"The Dimension Key…" Ed muttered. "You said David Symanski, right?"

"Uh, yeah? Why?"

Ed looked at the others, all of whom were waiting for an answer. "I went to his bedroom earlier tonight through a portal to the real world."

The rest was silent. "What? So that's why you took so long," Miki teased, causing Ed to give her a strange look.

"What? The room was empty except for a note to David. I headed back into this world as soon as I heard somebody starting to open the door," the black-haired boy explained.

"Yeah, nobody was home. So, can we get a move on or what?" Prokyomon asked the group.

"Come on, man, you could have easily tipped the bad guys off," Yuji objected.

Tadashi looked in the direction on the noises. "Guys, look at that." On a nearby hill was a black obelisk, a Control Spire.

"Okay, we gotta run!" Ed was about to make a break for it when Yuji grabbed his collar.

"Come on, man, we can fight these guys," the long-haired boy assured him. Then Ed noticed a digimon fly through the air and checked his digivice. "Megadramon, Ultimate Level… Oh, crap."

"Okay, maybe running isn't a bad idea after all," Tadashi said. "Where's the portal you were talking about?"

"This way!" Ed exclaimed, running with Prokyomon on his back. The boy looked behind him to see everyone doing well except for Ayaka and Gunter, the former was trying to lead the latter, but it was taking too long. Ed didn't want anything to happen to either of them, so he decided to digivolve his partner. "Prokyomon, go and get Gunter and Ayaka. Digivolution Activate!" he said, clutching onto his digivice.

"Prokyomon digivolve to… Guepardomon!" the digimon yelled out before jumping for Gunter and Ayaka, grabbing as the blond girl picked up her partner. Gunter was already clutching onto his partner, so he didn't need to worry about that. The large, humanoid digimon ran forward, catching up with his partner.

"Thanks for that," the girl told him.

"It's nothing," Guepardomon said.

"Okay, almost there!" He saw that he was well ahead of the others, but he had no choice but to do it anyway once he reached the TV. He found it weird that he could run so quickly. Maybe all that cardio he did with his father actually meant something. "Digi-port open!"

The light sucked him in along with Guepardomon, Ayaka, Gunter and their partners.

Tadashi was prepared to do the same with the others when Megadramon shot a blast, destroying the TV in the process.

The group of four had to face this thing head on. And what was more, there were a large number of Tankmon headed their way as well as several Airdramon and a number of Mechanorimon. Oh, and there was a pair of ogre digimon that the duo didn't recognize as well.

"From the looks of that Megadramon, this Digimon Emperor mastered the Dark Spiral already," Taizou observed. "Okay, Digivolution Activate!"

The digivolution failed, unfortunately for the group, since another Spire had gone just a moment before, almost right when Ed and the others went in through the TV.

"Oh, crap, run like heck!" Tadashi yelled, running along with his partner, followed by Miki, who was holding Syakomon as well as Taizou and Yuji. Unfortunately, Yuji tripped shortly after making his way forward from the location of the destroyed TV. Taizou noticed this and made the mistake of looking back, tripping as well. Their partners went and helped them up but it was too late. The two of them were surrounded by Dark Ring and Dark Spiral-controlled Digimon.

###  
Taizou was groggy when he woke up and no less uncomfortable. He found himself shackled to a wall inside a prison cell along with Yuji, who was still fast asleep. Looking around, there was no sign of either his partner or his other friends. He knew that Ayaka, Ed and their partners managed to get away along with that mentally disabled German, Gunter, but not seeing any of the others made him worry.

Looking upward at the shackles, he realized he couldn't get out of them because of his lack of strength. Maybe there was a different way of doing so, but he couldn't figure it out just yet.

"Hello," Taizou shifted his gaze from the shackles to a figure on the other side of the prison bars wearing red. The figure was a teenage boy of European decent with light skin and medium-length brown hair combed to the side, just the type of pretty boy that Miki would fawn over. The buzz-haired Japanese boy narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

"Who are you?" Taizou snapped.

"Oh, skipping the greetings, are we? I could be asking you the same thing since I don't know your name either." The figure smiled malignantly. "_I _am the Digimon Emperor."

"You don't look like Ken Ichijouji to me," the Japanese boy shot back, eliciting a laugh from the Emperor. "Your name is David Symanski, isn't it?"

"You guess correctly. I would ask if you knew my family but it's obvious that you don't. You're not even from the United States. However, it's obvious how you figured out my name. You used your digivice, which happens to be of a different model than mine, and guessed my name. You had a choice between me and Robert Battaglia. Obviously Symanski with its Slavic root was the more menacing name, so you guessed that first." The teen chuckled. "Now, what's your name? Don't worry; I won't go after your family or anything."

"Taizou Aoyama," the Japanese boy said. "Where's my partner?"

"Solarmon is safe in my lab. I haven't fit him with a spiral just yet since I can't figure out how to put it on him, so he's just there, sedated. Wouldn't want some gears to come out of him and hit me." The Emperor grinned some more. "So, why are you here? Are you Digidestined, chosen by the Digital World's rulers to destroy all that I've set up so far?"

"What? Heck no. We were just passing through. We aren't even Digidestined," Taizou told David.

"You lie," the Emperor responded, his smile turning into a glare. "You were sent here to defeat me."

"Listen, if we were here to fight you, why did we land so far from your territory?" the Japanese teen said, trying to use logic with this guy.

David snorted. "I'll find a reason why."

"And how did you detect our digivices, anyway?"

"I didn't detect _your _digivices," the Emperor responded somewhat flamboyantly, looking at his nails before making eye-contact with Taizou again. "I detected the digivices belonging to Eduardo Diaz and Gunter Kaufmann." The Japanese boy cursed under his breath. "Of course, those two had to escape into the real world and the only two in this world that I haven't captured got away. _And _I can't detect them, so I'm in the dark." David smirked at Taizou. "Maybe you can help by telling me how the cloaking program works."

"I didn't even put it on there and I didn't even know it was installed on that thing until after it was put on. This guy who calls himself the Watchmaker installed it remotely." Taizou glared at the Emperor.

"Oh, really, and he didn't put it on Eduardo or Gunter's digivices?" David asked slyly.

"Listen, we're not even from this digital world. We were just passing through to find some friends who are trapped in a different world, okay?" Taizou told the Emperor point blank.

"And _I _don't believe you," David said. "By the way, I don't go by David here. I am Emperor Damien."

"And why did you change your name to that?" Taizou inquired.

"It's more menacing. When you think of David, you think of David and Goliath. When you think of Damien, you think of some horror movie," the Emperor explained.

"Wow, this is kind of like a horror movie, come to think of it," the Japanese teen joked. "Just needs a little more torture and blood and maybe a script written by Stephen King just to round things off and what do you know? We were just kidnapped by some maniac who is killing us for some unknown reason. Of course, you kind of ruined that by revealing your name."

Damien chuckled a bit. "Well, anyway, I'll just keep you around, I guess. In the meantime, I'll try to find your friends. It shouldn't take too long. Oh, and I'll be interrogating your other friend here once he wakes up."

"He doesn't speak a word of English, so you won't get a peep out of him," Taizou told his enemy.

"Right… Well, in that case, I'll just implant the English language into his mind using this Sorcerymon that I have here in my castle with a dark ring around his neck." With that, the Digimon Emperor walked away.

###

Miki woke up in a cave. She had no idea where she was or how long she had been out, but there she was. She wandered around and tried finding the others before coming across Tadashi having a little chat with Coronamon and Syakomon. The dark-haired girl walked down to where the blond was, sliding a little bit and causing some noise that got the blond's attention.

"Oh, you're awake. How are you feeling?" Tadashi asked, concerned.

"I'm alright, I just have a bit of a headache, that's all," Miki told him. "What happened?"

"You tripped and hit your head. Luckily, I had just gotten out of the way of one of those Control Spires and digivolved my partner to help. We got away just in time." Tadashi was really worried now. He knew what the dark-haired girl thought of him and he could guess what she would think of being alone with him. In fact, the girl was starting to fume.

"What? You mean it's just the two of us? Is this some kind of sick joke?" Miki shouted.

"Well, it's actually the four of us," Coronamon corrected, eliciting a glare from the irate girl.

Tadashi tried to explain things as best as he could. "There was nothing we could do. The last I saw of Taizou and Yuji was them getting picked up by Airdramon and with the number of Digimon around, going after them right then and there would be suicide." Miki grumbled under her breath. "I'm sorry. This was the best I could do."

The girl just dropped to the ground and sat back. This was a lot to take in. "Please tell me you have a plan."

Tadashi shook his head. "I can't think of anything."

"We should just go in and kick this guy's butt!" Coronamon exclaimed.

"On the TV show, the spires caused the characters' partners to revert to their previous level. We would have to take out the spires to even digivolve," Tadashi explained.

"So, let me get this straight: this guy won't let us even digivolve?" Miki asked, disbelieving.

"Yeah, that's what I tried at the camp, remember?" the blond asked, annoyed by the girl's lack of knowledge on the subject.

"Well, what about the source of those spires?" Coronamon inquired.

"The source is the Digimon Emperor's base. True, we know where it's at, but it's bound to be heavily guarded and, looking at the map, it's surrounded by hundreds of spires," Tadashi explained. "And then there's the source of that: the Dark Ocean. Remember what Heimdallmon said about that place? It's off-limits and for good reason."

"What's so bad about some ocean?" Miki asked, clueless.

"Yeah, I go swimming all the time!" Syakomon exclaimed.

"Ever see the episode of Digimon Adventure 02 with the title 'Dagomon's Call'?" Tadashi asked.

"Um, I don't watch the show, you know?" the dark-haired girl responded, annoyed that he would even ask.

"In that episode, one character, Kari, gets brought to this dark world by the digimon Dagomon, who wants to mate with her." Upon hearing Tadashi say that, Miki got a really disturbed look on her face.

"And _this _was a kids' show?" she asked, _really _disturbed by the concept. "Freaky."

"And well, with this Dark Ocean place, it's full of Control Spires as well as freaky things that can turn into digimon. They were all disguised as Divermon in the episode," Tadashi added, gesturing to describe how freaky it was. "And well, that was also where Daemon got sealed."

"But didn't that happen around Christmas?" Coronamon inquired. "And the show took place in 2002, which is this year. Okay, I'm really confused now."

"So, maybe Daemon isn't there," Miki suggested.

"But in the episode that Daemon got sealed, he indicated that he knew that Dagomon ruled that place, so that meant that he probably wasn't going to be stuck in there for very long," Tadashi said, pondering. "Now that I think about it, 02 had a _lot _of unresolved plotlines. The Dark Ocean, Daemon… Plus, those stupid Destiny Stones…"

"Of course, it's just a work of fiction," Miki said.

"Of course! That's it! Maybe only the first part of Adventure 02 really happened and the latter part was the way it was because the writers ran out of material to work with." Tadashi chuckled. "That makes about as much sense as anything, I guess."

Miki narrowed her eyes at him. "Wow, you are _such_ a nerd."

"But think about it. Ryo apparently knew the cast of Digimon Adventure, so it had to have happened in some capacity, _except_ for the parts that didn't make sense." Tadashi was smiling widely. "You know what; I think we can resolve one plotline."

"You're suggesting we go to this world with the digimon that wanted a thirteen-year-old girl?" Miki asked with a grimace. "Yuck. What did this digimon even look like?"

"Like a giant octopus," Tadashi said, grossing the girl out even further. "What we should do is find a way to the real world and get back together with the others. If we do that, then we should find a way to the Dark Ocean, probably by using the local Dimensional Corridor."

"Sounds good to me," Coronamon exclaimed.

"Yeah, I'm in," Syakomon said.

"And we're going to have to deal with some giant octopus guy? No thank you," Miki said, shaking her head.

"Come on! You want to save Taizou and Yuji, right?" Tadashi asked.

The dark haired girl stood there for a while, questioning her attitude for the first time.

###

The group landed on the ground with a loud thud. Ed knew that there was a high chance that someone had heard the six of them land on the floor of that empty bedroom. The teen got up and looked at the clock. It said 10:00 a.m. Before it said 4:00, so that meant that they were asleep for a good six hours. The black-haired boy got up and whispered the words to make his partner revert from Guepardomon back into Prokyomon before going and sitting on the bed. The others started to get up as well. Ed gestured for them to keep quiet with a finger to his mouth.

There wasn't anybody coming from what they could hear. Maybe the others were out of the house. If that was the case, they'd just wait for the others.

So they waited for ten minutes. Nobody came through from the other side. Ayaka was about to speak when Ed once again gestured for her to keep quiet before tip-toeing over to the window. Looking out, on the other side was just an alleyway that led straight to the front yard. The black-haired boy proceeded to open it slowly and then he climbed out along with his partner digimon followed by Ayaka and Gunter and their partners. Ed then proceeded to shut the window back the way it was before walking toward the front yard. So far, they didn't see anybody other than a woman that was working on the other side of another window, which caused Ed to crouch down to sneak past the brunette woman. Then they made it to the street after walking across a grassy yard.

The asphalt felt strange on his feet. He hoped that nobody were notice this suspicious group of teenagers. Then again, it wasn't like they were dressed like gangsters. They just needed to find out where they were.

When they made it out of the neighborhood, Ayaka finally broke the silence. "So, we're in the real world, but not _our _real world."

"Right, and that means we'll have to figure out what to do about everything," Ed said. "Where we're going to live, what we're going to eat, how we're going to afford any of those things."

"What are you thinking of doing?" Ayaka asked.

"I have a few ideas that I was going to implement when I ran away from that orphanage in France. Have you ever read the book 'Jumper'?" the chubby boy asked as they continued along.

"Jumper? Never heard of it," the blonde replied. "What's it about?"

"Well, David Rice is a teenager with an abusive dad. Just as his dad is about to _really _wallop him for not mowing the lawn, he teleports to the local library," Ed explained. "They mention a few of the things he did to keep alive in the first part of the book such as helping to pick fruit and sleeping on park benches. Eventually he teleports again, learns how to control it and robs a bank in New York." The black-haired teen chuckled at that one. "Not that we're going to do that. Basically, it goes into what he does such as how he 'borrows' money from his father and rents an apartment that he teleports in and out of. One of the first things he does, though, is get a fake ID and Social Security Number."

"Sounds like this guy did a lot of illegal things," Ayaka said, not liking it.

"Yeah, but he did them to survive. And once he started making money, he made sure he paid back what he stole into charities and whatnot. He felt really bad about what he did. It was an interesting book."

"Sounds like it," the blond said. Just then, they found a gas station. They didn't want to make themselves suspicious so Ed just walked in without any of the others, even Coonmon, and he made an inquiry.

"Excuse me, do you know what part of town we're in?" he asked a disgruntled, middle-aged woman at the counter.

"We're in Lakewood, kid. Are you lost?" she replied in a raspy voice, probably from all the cigarettes she had smoked over the years.

"Okay, thank you very much. How much is a map?"

"A dollar," she replied, looking positively irritated. Ed pulled out his wallet and looked at his money.

"What's the exchange rate between American dollars and Chilean pesos?" he inquired.

"How should I know? Do I _look _like a bank teller to you?" the woman asked angrily with her hands on her hips.

"I guess not. Well, see you later," Ed responded with a smile. As soon as he walked out of the corner store, he commented. "What a mean woman."

"So, what happened in the rest of the story?" Prokyomon asked, getting on his partner's shoulder.

"Well, a bunch of things happen. He meets this girl named Millie at a play. She had glasses. Oh, and he gets reunited with his mom, who ran away from his dad because of the abuse. Then things get sad." Ed hesitated to talk about the rest of the book.

"Why, what happened?" the brown raccoon inquired.

"His mom kind of dies. She got killed by Islamic terrorists that hijack planes. And yes, the book was written before 9/11. I would hate to see what would happen if it got turned into a movie." The rest of the group stopped and stood with open mouths with the exception of Gunter and Keramon.

"That's horrible!" Ayaka exclaimed.

"Yes it is. So, what do you say we stop by a bank and cash in whatever foreign currency we have?" Ed suggested.

###

When the brunette girl got home at just a little after noon, she walked straight to her room. "Hey, Cutemon, how are things going?" the girl asked and a certain rabbit came out from under the bed.

"Oh, not bad. Things are as boring as usual," the pink rabbit replied as her partner took off her dress and changed into something more comfortable, namely a pair of blue jeans and a teal shirt. The girl then equipped her D-3 onto her belt. "I think I may have heard something coming from David's room again."

The bespectacled brunette looked at her partner. "Okay, I'll go check it out."

The girl walked across the hall into her brother's room and checked things out. It looked normal, but she could tell someone had sat on her brother's bed since it was ruffled a little bit. The girl then walked over to the computer to check the video log to verify that someone had indeed come through the portal.

Sure enough someone had. There were three humans and three digimon, including the black-haired boy from earlier. But along with him was an Asian girl, possibly Japanese, and a Salamon. And then there was a tall, muscular guy of European descent. She assumed he was American, but that was because the black-haired guy was.

And to make matters worse, they were there for a whole ten minutes. Maybe they were waiting for someone else to come from the Digital World. She was amazed that her mother hadn't noticed since she was working from home in the next room over.

The brown-haired girl sighed. She still had friends in the Digital World, all of whom were trapped by her own brother. Cynthia, Angela, Stephanie… Robert…

She had to rescue them. There was a chance that these new, unidentified Digidestined could help, which meant that she _had _to find them.

She then started the recording and put the computer back in sleep mode.

###

A/N: How's that for the beginning of a new arc. This one is called the Two Emperors, largely because Damien is getting help from another world…

And now there are three plotlines going on concurrently. Don't worry, they'll all be solved.


	17. On the Run

Chapter 17: On the Run

###

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, just the OCs in this fic.

###

He sat there with his sign, hoping for someone to give him some cash. Things weren't going as well as he had hoped. It had turned out that they only had about two hundred dollars' worth of foreign currency, most of it Gunter's. Ed hoped that the large German wouldn't mind once he got his mind back. As it was, they did what they had to do to survive.

So now he was panhandling, something that he felt was beneath him.

In the meantime, they were going to stay in a transients' hotel until they had enough money to rent an apartment. Of course, to do that he would have to have an identity, something that he didn't have in this world.

He grumbled at the thought, reminding himself of how he used a local library's computer to search for him and the others in this world.

###

_"So, any luck?"_ _Ayaka asked, walking up to Ed as he searched on his computer._

_ "Nothing. It's like I don't exist. I also searched for you, and you don't exist either. There are a bunch of other things that are different as well." Ed scratched his right cheek._

_ "Like what?" the blonde asked out of curiosity._

_ "For one thing, have you counted the number of stars on the US flag?" the black-haired boy asked._

_ "No? Why, is the number different?" Ayaka inquired._

_ "Yeah, there are fifty-two states instead of fifty. In this world, Puerto Rico and Guam are both states," Ed explained. "There's more: It turns out a number of countries are larger. For instance, the South American nation of Gran Colombia didn't split into Colombia, Venezuela, Panama and Ecuador. Heck, it even encompasses Peru and part of Brazil as well. Chile now encompasses Bolivia's territory and Argentina has both Paraguay and Uruguay in its territory. Also, a number of African countries are larger as well and Mexico encompasses most of Latin America."_

_ "Okay, that's pretty weird. Anything else?" the blond asked._

_ "Yeah, I guess the Soviet Union split a bit further than in our world since Siberia and Chechnya are separate countries from Russia. Oh, and Korea is one country with its capital in Seoul. I guess the South Koreans won the war." Ed smiled and chuckled. "Talk about weird."_

_ "No kidding. So, you said that we don't exist. What about Gunter?" Ayaka inquired and Ed opened a window._

_ "He exists alright and he's a genius going to some type of German school called a Gymnasium. I wonder if that was the case in our world as well. Also, Digimon's a franchise in this world that just started its fourth season, Digimon Frontier. Looks interesting. I guess it has something called Spirit Evolution, whatever that is."_

_ "Crazy…" Ayaka mumbled. "Anything else?"_

_ "Well, look at this. This is the third season, Digimon Tamers. Guess who." Ed pulled up another window, showing Takato and the others on a poster, something that shocked Ayaka to no end._

###

The boy continued to wait for money. He was getting a surprising amount of cash from the various people who come by there. He somehow managed to get some grubby clothes from a second-hand store and a tattered old hat as well. He was wearing sunglasses to protect his eyes from the summer sun and he had a water bottle with him to prevent dehydration. Temperatures in the city were going to reach upwards of ninety degrees that day, so he had to be prepared.

Every so often, he checked his digivice, wondering if one of the digidestined or even the Digimon Emperor would come into the real world and confront him.

Sometime after noon, after he had waited a few hours and gotten more than a hundred dollars from generous bystanders who held out bills from their cars, he detected something, which was surprising. At the moment he was in a town called Westminster and he spotted the signal on his digivice coming from one of the cars waiting at the stop light. Just then, though, he was distracted by a person holding out a twenty-dollar bill which he snatched up real quick.

Unfortunately, whoever it was had passed by him and he lost track of them, though he continued to monitor them using his digivice. He looked up data on this person and found out who they were.

It was some girl named Abigail Symanski. He had to guess that she was related to David the Emperor, but he would have to talk to her to verify it.

Still, he had his reservations about it. For all he knew, the girl worked for the Emperor.

###  
They left the cave through an entrance on the far side of where they first went in. There weren't any Control Spires in that direction so Tadashi thought it would be safe. It had taken them more than a day to get to that point but the blond didn't regret it one bit.

"So, what now?" Miki asked, annoyed that they had taken so long going through that massive cavern.

"Well, I think we should find Digimon allies. Either that or we should make our way to the real world. One or the other." Tadashi smiled at the prospect of a little exploration. He felt that they had been in way too much of a hurry by going through their digital world so quickly. Then again, that was partially his fault since he was in such a hurry to find Takato and the others.

He took a deep breath just as it started to rain.

"What the…? Ew! My clothes are going to get wet!" Miki complained.

"Are you kidding? I love the rain!" Syakomon exclaimed in joy.

"We need to get out of here!" Coronamon freaked out, running right back to the cave.

"Coronamon, we've been in there for a day already. Don't you think that we've been stuck there enough?" Tadashi asked.

"I hate water! Come on; remember how you gave me a bath? Hated it!" the digimon called out, shivering underneath the mouth of the cave. Tadashi couldn't resist shaking his head while chuckling at the sight.

Miki just rolled her eyes before following the lion-like digimon back into the cave. "Come on, you can't possibly like it. Look at you, you're soaking wet!" the girl told Tadashi before he headed back into the cave with her.

"I guess you're right," Tadashi admitted. "So, we'll wait until the storm passes and then travel."

The dark-haired girl just frowned as Coronamon used his fires to dry Tadashi's shirt.

"There, that wasn't so bad," the blond said. "Come on, Miki, what's wrong?"

"What's wrong is that I'm stuck with you," the dark-haired girl told him point blank. "How come I didn't get stuck with Yuji or Taizou? Heck, bushy brow's partner can turn into a giant blimp and that way we could avoid the weather."

"So, it's not because I'm not the best looking guy on the team?" the blond asked. "You don't like that?"

"Oh, who likes being stuck with a bloated whale like you?" she said with her eyes narrowed in a glare.

"What! How dare you talk to my partner like that!" Coronamon shouted at her.

"Yeah, that was pretty mean," Tadashi told her. "Come on, are looks everything?" When the girl didn't answer, Tadashi decided to say something else. "What would you prefer, the ugly guy who was nice and made sure you had everything you needed and loved you more than anything or a really good-looking guy who beat you at night?"

The girl glared at him. "Oh, come on! Like I would ever get involved with either of them."

"But you see, good looks aren't everything," the blond explained.

"Yeah? Guess what? My dream is to become a model like my mom, okay? Good looks _are _everything in that field."

"And what's the common stereotype for supermodels?" the blond asked her, hoping to get her to think. "As in mental stereotype?"

The girl had to say he had a point. "They're shallow."

"Right. Okay, what about how they treat others?" Tadashi asked.

"Well, I guess… You know, it just stopped raining so let's get out of here!" she exclaimed, rushing off.

"Wait a second! We're not finished talking!" the blond called out after her. Instead of stopping, she tried to run as fast as she could. Unfortunately, she tripped on a giant tree root. Getting up, she noticed a digimon looking right at her from a distance, a BlackGarurumon. It bolted straight for her and would have gotten her if it weren't for Coronamon unleashing a fireball against him.

"Come on, buster! You pick on somebody your own size!" the lion shouted, eliciting a roar from BlackGarurumon.

"Digivolution Activate!" Tadashi shouted upon arriving.

"Coronamon digivolve to… Firamon!" he shouted, transforming into the larger, winged lion.

The two digimon stared each other down.

###

After detecting the digivice signal, Ed made his way back to the hotel room that he was staying in with the others. The room was kind of trashy with only one bed, peeling wallpaper and the smell of cigarette smoke. Not to mention, there were all sorts of stains on the carpet. "Guys, I think I found something," the black-haired boy told Ayaka as soon as he walked in.

"What was it?" the blond inquired of him.

"He thinks he may have found another Tamer!" Prokyomon exclaimed.

"Yeah, and she was heading straight north," Ed told her. "I'm not sure where she was headed, but we should go after her. I think you should talk to her since you're a girl and you're more experienced than I am with the whole Tamer thing."

The girl was surprised. "What? Right now?" She looked over at Gunter who was on the bed, sleeping. His partner was hanging upside down from the ceiling fan. Ever since waking up, Keramon hasn't said a word.

"I'm not sure if I can," she said.

"Actually, maybe we could have one of the Digimon look after him," Ed suggested. "Like Prokyomon, since there aren't that many domesticated raccoons around and he would probably scare people off."

"Yeah, and I can answer the door if I need to!" the digimon exclaimed, grinning widely. "Come on, what do you say, missy?"

"Well… I guess it's a good idea. We can bring Salamon with us in case," the blond said. "Okay, let's get going. How much money did you make today, by the way?" she inquired.

"A hundred twenty. Not tons and tons, but on top of the two hundred from yesterday, it should work pretty good for a little bit," Ed told her.

"Alright, let's go," Ayaka said. "Remember, Prokyomon, don't let anybody in, okay?"

"This hotel room is as good as sealed, ma'am!" the raccoon exclaimed, giving Ayaka a military salute. Ed had to chuckle at that one.

"Okay, see you later, buddy!" the black-haired boy told him.

###

They followed the digivice signal to a waterpark. Since neither of them had any swimwear, they ran straight to a second-hand store and went into the water park, paying about fifteen dollars per person. Ayaka had to leave Salamon outside since she wasn't a service animal, though, so the dog hid in some nearby bushes.

The two then proceeded to get in and get changed, putting their normal clothes into a twenty-five cent locker. Ed was wearing a black pair of trunks while Ayaka was in a yellow bikini. The two proceeded to walk toward the signal. On the way, Ayaka remembered something.

"Did you remember to bring sunscreen?" she asked.

"You know, I didn't think of it. Crap, I'm white as a sheet and I'm probably going to burn up if we're here too long," the black-haired boy realized. It was then that he wished he had at least some Indian blood so that he wouldn't burn so easily. But he just had to have only ancestors from Europe… He frowned at the thought. At least they were from Southern Europe so that he could tan, though.

Ayaka frowned as well. She hoped that there was at least a place that sold sunscreen there or else the two of them would look like lobsters by the end of the day.

The two continued moving until they reached the signal of the digivice, which turned out to be in a bag. Ed rolled his eyes. He looked around at all of the rides, wondering where the girl was. He had no idea what she even looked like.

Ed took a deep breath and walked off. "Where are you going?"

"Taking a walk. Ask for Abigail if anybody comes, okay?" he requested before continuing on his trek.

###

Abigail was with a couple of her girl-friends and wearing a pink one-piece. The brunette still wore her glasses in between rides but while she was on them, she had to take them off. She loved this water park and wanted to work here for the summer a couple years from now when she could actually apply. Something about it made her happy.

Every so often she would see someone that reminded her of that black-haired boy that she saw on her brother's computer screen, which was weird. She didn't find the chubby boy remotely attractive, but she couldn't stop thinking about him. Maybe it was just the hope that he could help her free her brother from the evil forces that were controlling him.

She frowned at that thought. "Abby, what's wrong?" one of her friends, a girl named Elizabeth asked with a kind smile. She had long hair dyed red and combed to the side and was wearing a yellow bikini.

"I'm just thinking about my brother, that's all," she responded.

"I know, right?" her other friend, a girl of African descent with long, straight black hair tied up in the back of her head said. Her name was Jahara and she was wearing a red bikini. "It's horrible that your brother's gone missing along with some of our friends. I wonder what happened to them."

And the horrible thing was that Abigail knew but she couldn't say what was going on. Nobody would believe her.

They moved forward in line. Just a little more and they'd go into the Pharaoh's Tomb ride. Abby kind of wished that she had a fourth person with them, but that wouldn't be likely.

Then she saw him. He was moving past the line but she recognized him from the video.

"Save my place in line, okay?" she requested of the other girls before going out from under the metal bars. She called out to the black-haired boy. "Hey! You with the black hair! Wait up!"

Ed stopped for a second. Was someone really calling out for him? Nobody knew him. Heck, he didn't even exist in that world. So he waited for a second. "Uh, hi, do I know you?"

The girl was someone attractive but somewhat plain at the same time. "You have a digimon, right?" she asked him and his eyes opened in realization.

"Uh, yeah… You're the Tamer I'm looking for, Abigail Symanski, right?" he asked.

"Yep, that's me!" she said bubbly. Ed couldn't help but see her as cute. This caused him to smile with a bit of an open mouth.

"Good to meet you. I'm Ed." The two of them shook hands.

"So, want to go on the Pharaoh's Tomb ride with us?" she inquired. Ed had to choose between accepting and rejecting the offer. But she grabbed his hand and pulled him along anyway, so he figured he'd accept, grinning the whole time. It's been awhile since he met a girl like this.

"Who's that? Is that Timothy Archuleta?" Elizabeth asked Jahara.

"Are you kidding me? Timothy's a lot younger than that," the black girl responded. "Still, I'd think her taste in guys was a bit better than that."

The bubbly brunette pulled Ed underneath a couple rows of metal bars until she was in line again. "Hey, so this is Ed," Abigail explained to her friends. "He's a friend that's visiting."

"Oh really? So, where are you from?" Jahara asked him.

"I live in Santiago, Chile," Ed answered.

"Really?" Elizabeth asked, surprised that he's from so far away.

"Yeah, my dad lives there. I'm actually from here in the states and I'm visiting for a little bit," the black-haired boy explained as best he could without saying something that would get him put in a mental institution.

"Wow, you've traveled a long ways," Jahara said in awe.

"You have no idea," Ed responded, grinning again.

"So, what brings you to the good old Denver Metropolitan Area? You born here?" Elizabeth asked.

"No, actually I was born in Las Vegas," the black-haired boy told them.

The girls looked confused at that. "The town in New Mexico?" Jahara asked.

"No, the one in Nevada," Ed corrected.

"That place? Wow that would have sucked," Elizabeth replied. "I traveled through there on the way to L.A. one time. It's a small town with only about 100,000 people in it if I remember right."

Ed was shocked at that one. Maybe he should have looked up some info on his place of residence for many years. "I was born in a place called Lancaster, California, though."

"Lancaster!" Jahara exclaimed. "I would love to go there someday."

"You would?" the black haired boy asked in confusion, his eyebrow twitching.

"I mean, come on! Imagine what it would be like going there with all the shows. Not to mention, I've always dreamed of walking down the Lancaster Strip. And then there are all the buffets."

Ed couldn't help but laugh. It would seem that his hometown and the place he grew up switched roles in this universe.

Abigail was somewhat astonished by all the confusion. She would have to ask Ed about it later. As it was, it was time to go on their ride.

###

"Howling Blaster!" Firamon had to dodge a burst of scorching, black flame before he could shoot back.

"Fira Claw!" the lion yelled, slashing across BlackGarurumon's back, scorching the enemy digimon with his burning claws.

"Draining Rain!" Ranamon called out, creating a cloud that sapped the wolf's strength, making it so that Firamon could defeat him more easily.

"Fira Bomb!" Firamon shouted, focusing and creating a fireball that burst forth, impacting with BlackGarurumon and deleting him.

"That was unexpected," Miki said, taking a deep breath. Her heart felt like it could have burst out of her chest that very moment.

"Yeah, no kidding. And this guy didn't even have a dark ring or spiral on him," Tadashi observed. "So, I guess this means we should probably keep moving just in case."

The dark-haired girl nodded. She had to have a bit of courage to say the next thing, though. "By the way, thanks for digivolving your partner so quickly."

Tadashi looked at the girl in surprise at that. "Wow, so this means you might actually like me?" he asked, a grin forming on his face.

"Don't push your luck too much," the girl replied, giving him a glare.

"You know, it's kind of pointless to judge people by what they look like," the blond told her. "I mean, did any of us discriminate against Ed because he's white?"

"Come on, you're half white yourself with those German ancestors of yours," the dark-haired girl said, walking along with her partner. "So, did any of your ancestors support Hitler?"

"I never asked. We don't like talking about him since he was an embarrassment to all Germans," Tadashi told her. "And to be honest, I've never even thought about that. I hope not. Then again, the Japanese supported him as a whole."

"Yeah, even though he was probably going to turn against us as soon as he was done with the rest of the world… What a jerk. I'm glad we don't have to deal with anybody like him." Miki crossed her arms.

"No kidding. I mean, we have to deal with despots, it's just that none of them are genocidal. Can you imagine anybody attempting that against digimon?" Tadashi asked, continuing the conversation.

"To be honest, yeah. There are plenty of nutjobs out there who want to nuke the digital world," the girl explained. "Not that any of them will do it, mind you."

"I hope not. Can you imagine facing an enemy like that, one that we would actually have to kill?" Tadashi looked down. "At least with Digimon they have a second chance so it's not like we really kill them."

"I never thought of it that way," Miki admitted. "Oh, and to add to earlier, I can't imagine any girl falling for someone with a similar body type to yours."

Tadashi shook his head. It was going to be hard to get her past that.

###

Ed was having the time of his life. True, it was supposed to be a simple mission of finding Abby and then going off to fight the Emperor, but at least he could forget about everything for a few minutes.

"So, for this ride, you're going to have to hold on real tight," the brunette said with a smile as the chubby boy strengthened his grip. Then the attendant pushed the boat with the two of them on it down the slide. Pretty soon the two of them were wet and screaming and not out of fear either.

After about a minute, the two of them reached the bottom. It was then that Ed was starting to feel the sun a bit much. "Hey, so, do you by any chance have any sunblock on you?"

"Yeah, it's back at my chair. You need some?" the girl asked rather cheerfully.

Ed nodded. "Yeah, definitely. Blame it on my European heritage, I guess."

The girl was taken aback by that. "What is your ancestry, anyway?" she inquired.

"Well, my dad's pretty much a Spaniard whose family's been in the Americas for a hundred years, of Galician and Basque decent. My mom's half Italian, a quarter Spanish and a quarter Lebanese. I'm quite the mixture." The black-haired boy gave a bit of a goofy smile.

"Yeah? Well, I'm half Polish and half a bunch of other things. I think I'm like one-eighth Norwegian, though, if I remember right," Abigail explained, thinking about her ancestors. "So, you're not, like, part Indian, huh?"

Ed shook his head. "No, but some days I wish I had the advantage of a slightly darker shade of skin so I wouldn't burn quite so easily." The duo headed back to the girls' seating followed from the distance by Elizabeth and Jahara.

"So, you think those two might turn into an item?" Jahara joked.

"They do seem to be spending an awful lot of time talking to each other today," Elizabeth replied. "To be honest, they seem like a good match." Then the two of them heard Abigail laugh at something that Ed said. "Yeah, they're definitely a good match."

"You're right. I haven't seen Abby so happy ever since all her friends disappeared along with her brother," the black girl commented. "At least he lives in Chile so that means they can take it slow. There's just one thing bothering me: where's everyone that he came here with like his dad?"

"How do you know he came with his dad? For all we know he's visiting his mom," the red-head asked.

"That _does _seem a little suspicious," Jahara said.

###

Ayaka was starting to get a little irritated with Ed. First, he walks off and leaves her behind for an hour without any sort of sunscreen. The girl really wanted the black-haired boy to come back.

And then he sees him, which gave her partial relief until she saw that he was walking with a girl. Who the heck did he think he was talking to a girl when they were on an important mission? At least Salamon found a way in to keep her company.

Still, the blonde couldn't help but glare as Ed walked toward her. The black-haired boy didn't have any idea what this girl was thinking. "Hey, Ayaka, I found our other Tamer," he told her.

"Really?" the girl asked scornfully before realizing that he was right. Abby decided to hold her hand out in a handshake.

"The name's Abigail but you can call me Abby if you want," the girl greeted as she shook Ayaka's hand.

"Oh, it's nice to meet you," the blond said.

"Whoa, is this your girlfriend, Ed?" a black girl that Ayaka definitely didn't know asked.

"No, we're just friends. This is Ayaka and she's from Japan," the black-haired boy explained.

"It's good to meet you," a red-head greeted, shaking Ayaka's hand. "My name's Elizabeth and this is Jahara."

"Wow, that's a pretty name," the blonde commented.

"Thank you," Jahara responded in a bit of a Southern drawl. "So, what brings you here in the states?"

"Oh, I'm just visiting, that's all," Ayaka told her.

"Wow, what a cute puppy!" Elizabeth commented upon seeing Salamon, who somehow made it in. "I didn't know they allowed dogs in the park."

_That's not a dog,_ Ayaka thought but didn't say, trying her best not to frown at Abigail's friends.

"So, how about lunch?" Abby asked the rest of the group, trying to prevent the blonde Japanese girl from getting any angrier at seeing her partner get attention from two girls she doesn't know. As it was, it seemed like Salamon was soaking it up for all it was worth.

###

Deep in the digital world, the Emperor just received reports from some of his digimon. They had apparently detected some sort of symbol etched into a wall somewhere in the vast deserts. He would have to look at that later. Now, though, he wanted to focus on three of the Tamers that he lost, namely the ones that went to the real world.

Just then, the dark digidestined's computer started to beep, indicating that he had a message from an ally in another world. He pressed a button and a far more menacing figure wearing a black outfit that consisted of a long cape and a mask that covered most of his face and extend upwards, ending in points. The figure had barely visible black hair behind the top of the mask.

"Ah, my fellow Emperor, what have I done to deserve your presence?" Emperor David asked in obvious flattery.

_"I just received your status report. It is deeply troubling," _the second Emperor responded in an extremely guttural voice. _"These Digidestined that appeared out of nowhere with D-Arcs are allies of my greatest enemies."_

"Is that the case?" David inquired.

_"You must destroy them at all costs, otherwise they could turn the tide of my war toward Takato's forces," _the second emperor told him.

"I have two of them in confinement. There are also two more that are stranded in this world. I've made sure I posted Ultimates at each of the televisions near where they were last seen, so you shouldn't have to worry about them going to my world." David smiled.

_"Still, there are those that are now in your world. What are you going to do about them, huh?" _the second Emperor asked, not pulling any punches.

The local Emperor gave him a slight grin. "I was working on that. Don't worry. From what I heard from their allies that are in my prison, none of them can reach Ultimate so I'll send an Ultimate after them after finding where they were at."

_"Good to hear. Now, I need to get back to my war," _the second Emperor responded, severing the connection.

"And you never bother to say goodbye?" David asked, rolling his eyes and bringing up a map of his home city. "Let's see, where are you, Eduardo? Hmm… You're cohorting with my sister, I see. It's time to put an end to that. I've always been protective of her." He smiled maliciously as he opened a gate to the real world from one of the pens holding Ultimate-level digimon.

"Go get them, Megadramon," he ordered, frowning angrily. "Just don't hurt my sister or else."

###

Just after finishing lunch, Abby decided to ask Ed some more questions. "So, how come you have a different digivice than I do?"

"Well, I think that's partially because I'm not really from this world," the black-haired boy finally admitted, surprising the bespectacled brunette.

"You mean, like the digital world?"

"More like another real world. You see, where I'm from, my mom's home country is separated from Argentina, and my dad's home country doesn't rule over Bolivia, Gran Colombia broke up in the early nineteenth century, the US only has fifty states and Las Vegas is a tourist trap with a population of over a million." He smiled at her.

"Sounds crazy," the girl responded. "So, which states aren't states in your world? Alaska and Hawaii?"

"No, Puerto Rico and Guam," Ed responded. "I think Puerto Rico tries to come into the union every so often, but I haven't heard anything about Guam."

The brunette nodded, a pensive look on her face. The black-haired boy was surprised that she accepted everything so quickly. Then again, maybe she was just playing along with him, though that didn't seem like something she would do. "So, do you exist here?"

Ed shook his head. "As far as I know, no. It's really weird, too."

"I bet," Abigail replied. "Well, if you need any help here, let me know."

"Actually, I was going to ask if you wanted to help us take down the Emperor. I have an idea that just might work," Ed responded.

"Like what?" the girl asked. "We already tried going straight to the Emperor's base but it didn't work and he ended up defeating us all. The only reason why I was spared is because I was his sister."

Ed nodded. "Actually, I was thinking of going to the…" His speech was interrupted when the group noticed a large whirlpool appear in the sky. "…Oh, crap," he said real quickly.

Then a digimon started to appear through the whirlpool. Ayaka was astonished at the sight of Megadramon.

"Abby, do you have your partner?" the blonde asked.

"No, she's at home. Can you reach Ultimate?" Abby asked.

Ayaka shook her head. She all the sudden felt nervous as the large, winged dragon emerged completely. She was going to have to take this enemy on all by herself and she definitely wasn't ready.

It was time she faced her fears and used courage.

###

A/N: Well, there you have it. Five guesses as to what happens next.

Anyway, yeah, there's some interesting info in this chapter about the other world that they're in now. I thought it was a bit of a letdown with this one fic that involves dimensional travel that it never went into what made the two worlds different. This one does. The Second Emperor's world is even more different.

And on the setting: At first I considered having it take in Canada, namely Toronto, but then I changed it to Cleveland for some reason. And then I decided to have it take place in the Denver Metro Area, particularly the areas of Lakewood (where Abigail lives) and Westminster (the location of the water park, Water World). The reason for this is that I actually know the city a little since I kind of live by it (though, 200 miles away is kind of stretching the meaning of 'by it'). And I have friends there. I even namedropped one of them. Also, one of Abby's friends is named after a girl whose comments I see on Facebook every so often, kind of…Then there's Jahara, which is actually a name I stole from a white girl I knew in real life at one point. It just kind of fit.


	18. Courage and Restoration

Chapter 18: Courage and Restoration

###

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, just the OCs in this fic.

###

Gunter made his way to the door, turning the handle and walking out onto the second-story balcony of that trashy hotel to see a whirlpool in the sky. He knew what he had to do even if he didn't know how. Somehow, some of his old memories were leaking through.

"Gunter, what are you doing?" Prokyomon called out; running after him on all fours and standing on his hind legs once he stopped, using his furry tail for balance.

"Ich brauche ihnen zu helfen." _I need to help them,_ the large German responded to the raccoon, understanding him since when digimon talk, the brain translates their speech into human language somehow.

"Yeah, but you can't!" the digimon objected. "Now, get back in the hotel."

"Nein, ich will nicht das tun." _No, I don't want to do that, _the large teen responded, frowning.

Then the memory of his partner emerging from his computer went through his mind. His memories were coming back and this was somehow triggering them.

"Wo is mein Partner?" he asked, walking back into the hotel.

"Listen, you need to wait here!" Prokyomon exclaimed, shutting the door behind him and getting Gunter's attention. "My partner told me to watch over you and that's what I'll do!"

The muscular German gave him a blank expression. "Ich will nicht warten." _I don't want to wait,_he said.

"Don't worry, they'll take on this enemy. And then Ed and Ayaka will be back to help you out "Du weisst es nicht. Sie werden sie töten." _You don't know that. They will kill them._

"No they won't. I have faith in my partner as well as in Ayaka and her partner. Just wait a few minutes. That digimon will be deleted and gone." Prokyomon held Gunter's hands with a pleading expression. "Please."

Gunter glanced at the digimon, his expression still blank.

###

"Salamon digivolve to… D'Arcmon!" the angel yelled out, flying upwards toward the large dragon, Megadramon. "Dancing Sword!" she yelled, using La Pucelle to perform a magnificent sword technique, aiming straight at the dark spiral on the dragon's arm and shattering it.

Unfortunately, that didn't end the battle, since Megadramon was actually quite feral. "Dark Side Attack!" he yelled out, shooting a pair of missiles toward the ground. D'Arcmon proceeded to move forward and deflect one toward the other, but the blast from the explosion knocked her back, causing her to hit a nearby building. After a few seconds she regained her composure and headed straight at the dragon.

On the ground, the crowds were frantically running away from the sight of the battle, heading straight for the lockers to grab their clothes and leaving the park. Abby and Ed, on the other hand, stayed, despite knowing that they couldn't really help in the battle.

And from the look on Ayaka's face, she needed the encouragement.

"Abby, what are you doing?" one of her friends, Elizabeth asked.

"I'm waiting here. Just go on without me, I'll be fine!" she told the red-head.

"You better be. Don't tell me this has something to do with whatever happened to your friends," Jahara responded.

"I'll tell you everything later," Abby promised. Maybe then they'd believe her.

"Come on, Liz, let's go," the black girl told the red-head before they walked off.

Ed was somewhat concerned for the girl. "Are you sure? You don't even have your partner with you."

"Neither do you," the brunette responded with a smirk.

The black-haired boy grinned back before turning serious and looking toward Ayaka. "Hey, you alright?"

"I'll be fine," the blonde lied. She was afraid of failure and afraid of letting the others down. Tadashi, Miki, Yuji and Taizou were all probably captured or worse and there was nothing that she could do about it.

She had to maintain her courage.

"Ayaka, remember you have us here. Worse comes to worse and I can call Prokyomon," Ed assured her.

"No, Prokyomon needs to stay where he is," the blonde ordered.

"What's your partner doing?" Abby asked, putting on her shirt since she had it with the rest of her stuff.

Ed spoke to her in a tone of regret. "He's keeping an eye on the other guy we're stuck here with. He was brainwashed by a rogue Tamer and attacked us. When he lost, she scrambled his brain."  
Abigail gave him a look that was a cross between shock and disgust. "That's absolutely horrible. How could anybody do that?"

"We've been trying to figure that out ourselves," Ayaka responded, taking her eyes off the battle momentarily. She didn't have any of her cards with her so there was only so much she could do to help her partner. The angel digimon was dodging Megadramon's attacks easily, but there was only so long until he caught up with her.

She couldn't fail.

And yet she worried that she would.

"Ayaka! Don't be afraid!" Ed exclaimed, hoping to encourage her. "Your fear is only holding you back. Don't let it."

The girl looked at the chubby boy. "Thanks. Give him all you got, D'Arcmon!"

She reminded herself that her friends were there. She needed their courage as well as her own and the fact that they were both relying on her helped.

That was when she noticed her digivice glow with the orange crest.  
**SUPER DIGIVOLUTION_**

"D'Arcmon digivolve to…" The new digimon that was formed, floating in the sky, was something that none of the Tamers ever even heard of. Abby even thought that D'Arcmon digivolved into something else, namely Hippogriffomon, but that wasn't the case here. Instead, the digimon was humanoid and D'Arcmon's wings disappeared, turning her into a busty monk with a golden crown on her head, a white robe, a necklace with numerous red beads on it, and a number of scrolls. The digimon had blue eyes but her mouth was covered by a red cloth.

"… Sanzomon!"

"Sanzomon, wow? She's pretty," Abby commented upon seeing the monk float in front of the dragon.

Ed immediately checked his digivice. "Sanzomon, Ultimate Level, Vaccine Attribute, Monk Digimon. This digimon is said to travel the digital world enduring many ordeals in order to achieve enlightenment. The name Sanzo comes from the name of a character in the work of Chinese literature, Journey to the West." Ed looked impressed from that. "Interesting."

"I wasn't expecting her Ultimate form to look like this," Ayaka said in amazement at her partner's new form.

"Neither was I," Abigail agreed.

Up in the air, Sanzomon was facing down Megadramon. "Your attempted destruction of innocent life won't go unpunished. As you are not controlled by the Dark Spiral, you are responsible for your actions."

"Yeah, lady? I don't think that matters. I'm going to do what I want!" the dragon shouted at her. "Dark Side Attack!" Megadramon launched a series of missiles at Sanzomon, who deflected them with her powers, causing them to head off into the air before exploding.

"My turn. Kochou Mu-kyou!" she shouted, causing the dragon to experience each of her ordeals.

"Now, for my final attack, Mugen Danmaku Shin-kyou!" she shouted, causing the illusion that Megadramon was being hit by each of her beads, crushing his spirit and causing him to destabilize before disintegrating into Data.

She did it. Ayaka felt a wave of relief flow through her as Sanzomon glided down to her and the others. "You were awesome," the timid girl told her partner.

"Thank you," Sanzomon replied.

"So, I guess we're going to have to leave," Ed commented nervously. "The cops are headed this way and I still haven't grabbed our stuff from the locker."

"That shouldn't be a problem," the monk said, doing a twirl with her scrolls, teleporting the group to the lockers which were being emptied by everyone.

"So much for a nice, quiet day at Water World," Abby commented, folding her arms. She was already dressed, unlike the other two. Ed emptied the locker and pulled out his stuff before giving Ayaka hers. Then Sanzomon teleported them once again, but to the apartment.

###

The Emperor's eyes twitched as he finished going over the video of the battle that had just occurred. He saw what happened: a third member of his enemy team had just reached the Ultimate level. And if he hadn't sent Megadramon, this wouldn't have happened.

So, he wasn't going to do anything else to these other Tamers. In fact, it would be best to just leave them alone unless he came up with a new strategy.

He saw the patterns, so he decided to act, typing his commands to all the Ultimate levels based at each of the exits to the real world. He figured that if he just left them alone while he consolidated his power even further, they wouldn't be a match for him when it was finally time for them to go after him.

He grimaced at the thought. This wasn't going to be fun, but practicality outweighs his ego in benefits.

###

When Sanzomon arrived at the apartment with Ed and the others, Gunter showed up immediately and gave the chubby boy a big hug, lifting him off the ground. "Du lebst!" he exclaimed.

"So, this is the guy you were talking about, huh?" Abby asked the blonde.

"Yeah. We have no idea how to undo what the Digimon Queen did to her," Ayaka responded.

"Digimon Queen? Wait, does this mean that some Rika-wannabe was behind this?" the brunette inquired.

"Actually, no, she just stole the title from Rika," Ed exclaimed, getting out of the large German's grip just barely.

"I may be able to help," Sanzomon said, gliding over to Gunter and putting her right hand against his forehead and her left against his chest.

###

Sanzomon found herself in a dark area. There were numerous doors around her, all but one with locks on them. So, she walked to each of them, unlocking them one at a time and peering in. Sometimes she would see old memories on video. Other times, she would find bookshelves full of information.

Then she looked into one of them, finding something that wasn't there but was obviously added. It was a chest. She walked up to the chest and opened it with her powers. It contained vast knowledge that the Digimon Queen gave him while he was her servant.

The monk looked around before almost getting attacked by something coming from one of the other rooms, a large, grey raccoon. She couldn't recognize the species but she could tell that it was a larger version of Prokyomon, only far more feral. The digimon charged her.

"Rabid Bite!" it yelled. The monk had to block the attack by holding Mapachemon's mouth open despite the rancid breath and the digimon's foaming mouth.

However, she was strong enough to take this enemy on. She was, after all, on the way to enlightenment.

She ripped the monster in half with her strength, causing it to be deleted, his data disappearing into the rest of Gunter's mind.

She inspected the rest, finding a room that was almost destroyed. However, she was able to repair it, causing the parts of the room to get put back together.

###

Sanzomon opened her eyes and looked at Gunter. His eyes were filled with understanding and he had a grin. The large German fell backwards onto the ground, adjusting to everything around him.

"Wow, now that was something!" the guy exclaimed in a deep voice. "So, what's going on?" The brown-haired guy got up and looked at the others. "Uh, hi, I'm Gunter Kaufmann."

"Ed. We met at the orphanage, remember?" the black-haired boy asked, grinning uneasily.

"Oh, of course! How could I forget that? So, you still want to go back home to Chile? Wait, where are we, anyway?" Then the large German patted his right butt cheek. "And where's my wallet?"

Ed walked over to the dresser and grabbed it. "Sorry, we had to borrow some money to survive. We're kind of trapped in a parallel world where Ayaka and I don't exist."

The German was taken aback. "Okie dokie, how do we get back?" he asked goofily.

"We're going to need to use something called the Dimensional Corridor in the Digital World," Ayaka explained. "Unfortunately, this world has a Digimon Emperor."

Gunter rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Ha! Figures."

"And as far as your answers from earlier, we're in Denver, Colorado," Ed explained. "We traveled to this world on the way to finding Takato's team from Japan. Unfortunately, we haven't gotten to them yet."

The German nodded. "The Tamers of Shinjuku, huh? You know, I've always wanted to meet them." He chuckled a bit. "So… What am I doing here?"

"What do you remember from in between the time you talked to me and now?" Ed asked.

"Let's see… I ran out of the place as fast as I could as soon as I realized that those guys were all a bunch of Anti-Digimon freaks, but they caught up to me and Keramon," the German then came to a realization. "Oh, crap, they tortured me. I'm just a kid." Then he wondered something else. "How old are you guys all, anyway?"

"I'll be fourteen in a couple weeks," Ed replied.

"Thirteen," both Ayaka and Abby responded.

"Wow, I feel old. I'm fifteen," Gunter told them with a grin and a chuckle. "So, after that, I fell asleep and started getting this weird voice in my head and this chick with a giant raccoon broke me out of that place. After that, I lost complete control." He realized what had happened since then. "She made me do things that I didn't want to…" His face contorted to one of rage. "That horrible, horrible…"

"It's alright, Gunter, you're safe now," Ed reassured him.

"_If_ you knew what she did to me and what she had me do to other people…" The German got up and whispered into Ed's ear. The black-haired boy was now pale. "She deserves to be punished."

"I agree," Ed responded. "That's just sick."

"I know! Exactly!" Gunter exclaimed loudly.

"So, anything else you remember?" Ayaka asked.

"I guess…" the German thought for a few minutes, scratching his chin. "I remember you guys having to take care of me. Thank you for that. Also, sorry about that time I fought you guys with Infermon."

"Can you still access that digivolution?" Ed inquired, getting a nod from Gunter.

"I achieved that back in Germany. Of course I can!" the large teen exclaimed with a smile.

"So, why were you in Paris in the first place?" the black-haired boy inquired.

"I was there for a class trip. We were supposed to be there for about a week, but when the Parisian Tamers all started disappearing and Ed was detected, they sent me after him to verify who he was." Gunter grinned. "It was a fun trip. You didn't spend all two hundred of my Euros, did you?"

"No, we just cashed it for American dollars since we were here. You had the most out of all of us," Ed explained.

"Ach! Well, that works." Gunter lied back on the bed just as Sanzomon was done with Keramon.

"Here you go, your partner should be back to normal," the monk said before reverting back to her in-training form of Nyaromon.

"Well, at least that's over with," Ayaka commented, picking up the cat head.

Gunter grinned at his partner, who smiled widely back. "Gunter! How glad I am to see you! It felt like I was in some sort of prison or something!"

"Good to see you too, buddy!" the larger German greeted back enthusiastically.

Everyone smiled at the sight of their new teammate, even though in their view he seemed a little eccentric.

###

In the digital world, Yuji woke up from his sleep, feeling the bump on his head. He heard Taizou and someone else talking through the bars, so he went over to investigate. Taizou was speaking to another prisoner in English. The other prisoner was European, though he had darker complexion than usual and was somewhat robust, but not quite as much as Tadashi or even Ed. He also had an aquiline nose, brown eyes and shaggy, black hair.

"Oh, so this is Yuji," Taizou introduced his long-haired friend. The other boy waved his hand in salutation.

"The name's Robert," the other guy responded in a deep voice for someone of his age. "Robert Battaglia."

"Good to meet you," Yuji responded in English, surprising even him. "Whoa, since when did I know English?" he asked, smiling widely. "This is awesome and I didn't even have to take any boring classes, either!"

"Yuji, the Digimon Emperor just had a Sorcerymon transfer his language skills to you so he could interrogate you later on," Taizou explained, bursting the long-haired guy's bubble.

"What? Are you serious?" Yuji exclaimed. "Man, that sucks!"

"Yeah? I've been stuck here for about three weeks," Robert told the Japanese duo.

"Tell Yuji what happened to your team," Taizou requested.

"So, anyway, we came here to take on the Emperor when he least expected: in the middle of the night. First we took out as many control spires around here as possible and then we ransacked his base. It took maybe two, three hours, no biggie. Then he showed up… with his partner."

"What is his partner? Wormmon?" Yuji asked.

"No, it was Koemon. And he had a dark spiral around him," Robert continued to explain.

###

_The group of Digidestined confronted the Emperor, who was wearing a smiling theater mask. "Well, if it isn't the kids that have been ruining plans ever since I've come to the digital world. Abby, you should know better than to hang out with strange men."_

_ "And who are you to tell me who I should hang out with? I met him in the digital world." The brainy brunette responded._

_ "Oh, really. How do you know he's not evil?" the mysterious, rogue digidestined asked, causing all five of them, four girls and one boy, to get into a battle stance._

_ "Believe me, I would totally know if he was evil," one of Abby's friends, a black girl responded._

_ "Yeah!" another one, a girl with short, blond hair agreed._

_ The man chuckled. "I'm only here to watch out for my little sister." That sentence shocked the group._

_ "Your brother?" Robert asked Abby._

_ "No, it can't be. My brother's in the real world," she objected._

_ Then he took off his mask, revealing the visage of none other than David Symanski. "You may know me as Emperor Damien." Then he pulled out his grey and black D-3. "Come on, Koemon, it's time to teach these trouble-makers a lesson."_

_ Abby still couldn't believe it. He couldn't be… There was no way that David would do this!_

_ "Koemon digivolve to… Gokuwmon!" the digimon yelled, becoming a large, white-furred ape with a staff._

###

"He let Abby go because he was his sister but he's kept us all in captivity ever since." Robert looked angrily. "Once I get out of here, I'm going to strangle that guy."

"On the contrary, my Italian friend, we're going to go on a nice, little trip," the Emperor said, walking into the cell area, grinning maliciously. "In fact, we are all going."

###

After finishing with everything at the run-down hotel, the group decided to grab dinner at Panda Express. "You know, it's been forever since I've eaten here. I used to eat here all the time in Vegas," Ed explained to the group.

"Wow, I don't even know what to eat," Ayaka commented, deciding to follow Ed's lead and eat Chow Mein and orange chicken.

"So, they don't have Panda Express in Chile, huh?" Abby asked Ed.

"Nope, at least not yet," the black-haired teen responded. "You know, just before getting kidnapped, I wanted desperately to get back to the US, but then, after I got kidnapped, I wanted to head back to Chile more than anything, mainly to be with my dad."

"He sounds like a really nice guy," Abigail responded. "I feel that way about my brother."

After picking up and paying for his food, Ed walked to their seating area and sat down. He also had another package that was for Prokyomon once they headed back. It was then that he remembered something. Once all four were at the table, he pulled out his drawing pad to show them the mysterious message that he copied from the digital world.

"Do either of you know Latin?" he asked Gunter and Abigail.

"Nope," the brunette responded, shaking her head. "They don't start teaching foreign languages in earnest until High School. And I don't even see a reason to learn Latin in the first place."

"Well, what do you know, I'm in my second year of the language. Maybe I could take a look at it," Gunter suggested with a smile. The group looked at the message.

IMPERATORSYMANSKICLAVISDIMENSIONALISEST.

EISVNTSORORCVIVSEMBLEMALVCISESTFRATERQVECVIVSEMBLE FATIEST.

EVERSORMVNDORVUMCLAVEMDIMENSIONALISFVRABITVR.

"Whoa," Gunter said, narrowing his eyes in shock. "I can barely read this. I know the ancient Romans bunched their words together but this is ridiculous."

"Yeah, I was able to decipher the first line, but once I saw the second one, I was, like, forget it," Ed said. "The first line says 'Emperor Symanski is the Dimension Key'. I take that to mean Abby's brother."

"Emperor Symanski fits him, though he likes going by Damien for some reason," she explained. "But what the heck is a dimension key?"

"Maybe he's a doorway to another dimension," Gunter guessed. "I give up. What we need, though, is a dictionary and we need to separate all these words. Let's see…" The brown-haired german started to write down the words in the second sentence. "Ei sunt soror."

"You just wrote the 'V' as a 'U'," Ed told him, overcorrecting the large German.

"Yeah, that's because the letter 'V' signified both a vowel and a consonant. Same with the letter I. Heck, the letter V didn't even make a V sound back then. It was actually pronounced like a W." Gunter grimaced at the sight of the first few words, which now made some sense in a headache-inducing way. "I know what's going on. That's the Dative of Possession. He has a sister whose crest is of light and a brother whose crest is of fate or destiny."

"What?" Abby asked, really confused. "It's just the two of us. We don't have a brother."

"Were either of your parents married before?" Ayaka inquired.

"No," the brunette responded, wondering why she would ask that. "Plus, my brother David's sixteen and my parents were married for five years before having him." Then she thought about it for a second. "Maybe he's from another dimension like you guys," she suggested with a smile.

"That's an idea," Ed said, grimacing slightly. "But I'm not sure how much sense it makes."

"Yeah, since the prophecy or whatever is in this world, he's got to be here to," Gunter shot back, poking his chin with his pen before grabbing a bite of orange chicken.

"But if I remember right, the first line was on some ruins in our digital world," Ayaka objected. "I know, neither of you were there to see it, but I remember this Agumon Hatase saying some random phrase that sounded like that."

"I do have to wonder: why Latin?" Ed asked in confusion. "I mean, why, if they decided to encode this, did they use Latin and not something else like Ancient Greek, Hebrew or Sanskrit. Heck, why isn't it in Old Japanese or something?"

"Maybe whoever wrote it on the wall wanted us to find it. It's obvious that this person traveled across a few different worlds," Gunter suggested energetically.

"Well, whatever's going on, this just gives us more questions," Ayaka grumbled.

###

The group flew on a corrupted Ultimate form of Taizou's partner and headed toward an unknown part of the digital world. Taizou was at least glad to have quarters again instead of living in that horrible jail, but he still couldn't walk around on this thing freely.

The teen had a female guard just inside his door that was going to prevent him from going out. It was a shame that the Latina was on the other side. She was kind of hot. Plus, that busty uniform that the Emperor put her in didn't help any.

She just stood there, stoic. The teen wished he could at least ask her out and get rejected, but that wasn't going to happen. As it was, whenever he considered doing that, he felt a twinge of guilt and remembered Mizuki.

He missed that girl and wondered what she was up to with that crazy Doctor clone of hers.

That red hair. Those eyes. He missed her and wished that he could hang out with her more.

But he had to live with that.

Eventually, the digimon landed and the brown-haired boy was led out with everyone else. The group walked into a small building, looking around at all the digi-code on the walls.

Robert glanced around, worried about what might happen.

And Yuji just looked bored out of his skull.

The group wandered inside. "This is what I detected before: the Crest of Destiny." The teen held up his digivice to it. "It's definitely not mine."

He pushed Taizou forward. "It's definitely not mine either. Mine is Friendship," he told him.

"Just hold up the digivice to the crest, okay?" the Emperor ordered and Taizou did so. Nothing happened. Then Yuji followed with an annoyed expression on his face. The long-haired boy just held it up without being asked and, like with his best friend, nothing happened.

"Okay, now for you," the Emperor ordered Robert. The boy held up the digivice and it glowed brightly along with the wall. Before he knew it, the wall shrunk and floated toward his neck. A tag then formed around his neck and the crest inserted itself into the tag.

"Robert Battaglia, bearer of the Crest of Destiny," the Emperor said with a chuckle. "Let's see what's further into these ruins."

They were led along, not knowing what to expect. "You know, Mister Emperor, sir, I think we should have our partners with us," Yuji told him.

"They already are with you," the Emperor said, indicating a Sealsdramon and a BlackGargomon. "Of course, Zeppelinmon couldn't fit in here so he won't be coming down. That was the exception, though, not the rule."

They continued along, not knowing what else to do. They hated being helpless.

###

Abigail Symanski got hope just after dinner. "Abby, where were you?" her father asked as soon as she entered.

"Just with some friends, that's all," she said.

"Abby, there was a monster attack and you were with friends?" her mother asked, sitting down in the next room.

"I heard from Jahara's father that you stayed without them and went with strangers," her father added.

"Just because you don't know them doesn't mean I don't," she replied angrily.

Her mother looked up at her father before turning to her. "Abby, your brother disappeared three weeks ago and so did three of your closest friends. We can't have that happen again."

The girl took a deep breath. "Mom, dad, listen," she said. "About David…" The duo listened intently. "These friends of mine are my only ticket to rescuing David, to saving him. He's… He's gotten into trouble."

"What is he doing?" her father asked, now knowing that his daughter knew more than she was letting on.

"He… You won't believe me."  
After a slight pause, her mother spoke. "Abby, we'll believe you, no matter how crazy it is."

The brunette girl looked at her mother through fogged glasses. "You remember that Digimon show David and I liked?"

"Yeah, I remember even taking you to the Movie," Mr. Symanski responded.

"Well, it's not just a show, it's real," she told them. She knew from their shocked looks that they couldn't possibly believe her. "And now David's a Digimon Emperor and he's enslaved a large part of the Digital World. Those friends of mine are Tamers that have their own partner digimon like I do. I know you don't believe me, but…"

She ran off to her room. The couple was about to head after her but she came back after a few seconds with a pink rabbit. "This is Cutemon, my partner." She let the rabbit down and she walked toward the girl's parents.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mister and Missus Symanski," the rabbit said, smiling and holding out her hand.

The next thing Abby knew, her father had fainted and her mother had to run over to him.

###

"So, there are now four of us," Ayaka commented. The group sans Abby was currently in the old, beat-up hotel room, talking as the sun went down.

"What's the next move?" Ed asked her, hoping for a reply.

The blonde thought about it for a second. "Wait, you want me to decide?"

"Well, you have seniority over me," he responded.

"Plus, you know Ed and I don't," Gunter said while balancing himself on the bed with his feet on the wall. "And there's the case of how you're the only one here that can reach Ultimate other than me."

"Well, we'll have to check the digital world for any of the others that may have escaped and then we'll use the Dimensional Corridor to go to the Dark Ocean and end the threat of the Digimon Emperor once and for all. And we'll have to do all that without attracting David Symanski's attention." The girl took a deep breath. This was going to be difficult.

The two guys nodded. "Okay, that sounds like a plan," Ed said, smiling at her. "Then we'll have to figure out where Dagomon's base is in the Dark Ocean."

"Dagomon's basically a copy of the HP Lovecraft character Cthulhu, right? So, maybe he lives in a giant city beneath the ocean," Gunter suggested.

"Who is HP Lovecraft?" the black-haired teen asked, confused.

"A horror author," the brown-haired teen explained, surprising Ed. The black-haired boy had no idea that Gunter would even be interested in that kind of stuff. "So, to get underwater, we'll need a digimon that can go underwater."

"Funny, I met a girl named Mizuki who had an Armadillomon for a partner," Ayaka commented. "If that digimon was here, then we could at least get one of us down there."

"Yeah, only one," Ed said, scratching his chin. "What about Miki. Maybe if she wasn't captured, she could take us there. After all, Ranamon can control water, can't she?"

"Well, I guess I should take a shower," Gunter told the group, for some reason being reminded by the mention of all this water. That didn't make his abrupt change of subject matter any less jarring to the others.

"Uh, the water doesn't work in there," Ed told him. "And I thought we were talking about the Dark Ocean!"

"What? Okay, what are we going to do about cleanliness, then?" the muscular German asked, grimacing.

"Well, last night, I went to a 24-hour fitness and showered in the locker room. All it cost was about five bucks to get in," Ed explained, realizing that Gunter wanted to continue talking about this.

"Then there are public pools," Ayaka suggested.

"You know, this whole living in a world where you don't exist is harder than it looked on television," Ed told the others. "Imagine having to permanently live here. Then we'd probably have to steal identities to do anything."

"So, you willing to go with me to the gym?" Gunter asked.

"Might as well," Ed responded. "Just don't expect me to use the shower next to yours."

"Hey, I was just thinking of going there to work out, that's all. At least, along with the shower thing," the large German responded.

Ayaka smiled. At least the two of them were getting along as friends. She also looked at her green partner, smiling at the fact that she reached the Ultimate level.

She looked forward to getting all of this worked out.

###

A/N: Yeah, Sanzomon. I swear, in every single fic that features a D'Arcmon, she digivolves into Hippogriffomon. Yeah, I know, she becomes one in the Digimon Frontier movie, however, that wasn't a true digivolution since both digimon were just a Mega-level in disguise (I can't remember the name of the digimon at the moment). In my opinion, Sanzomon just fits a _lot _more.

Also, hopefully Gunter's an entertaining character. If anybody's got any comments, let me know in a review.


	19. Sinceridad

Chapter 19: Sinceridad

###

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, just the OCs.

###

Yamaki examined the information that he had gotten from the US government about this Carmine Reed fellow. Most of it seemed like nonsense, especially the birth date which said April 25, 1689. There was no way this Mr. Immortal person could possibly be that old.

Then there was how apparently he made an agreement with the government to make whatever identities he needed as long as he obeyed the law as best he could. There was a long series of files detailing each of these identities. When he reached the final file, he was in shock.

"Keith Jackson…" he said under his breath, narrowing his eyes in spite. "I should have known."

It made too much sense. Plus, there was the fact that the blond had the same partner as Mr. Immortal. In other words, he _was _Mr. Immortal.

Upon finishing his second look through the files, Yamaki dropped the files back onto the table and picked up his cell-phone.

"This is Mitsuo Yamaki. I would like to send the police to a certain residence to detain the occupant there," he said calmly through the phone.

Now he had his man.

###

"Giga Cannon!" Machinedramon shouted, unleashing a powerful attack against the nearest black eyeballs.

"Jishin! Kaminari! Kaji! Oyaji!" Gankoomon called, shooting a massive beam from the fire god on his back at even more black eyeballs, destroying them in the process.

"Hard Rock Damashī" OmegaShoutmon yelled, destroying even more eyes with his burning fists.

"Dragon Impulse!" AeroVeedramon screamed, creating a powerful dragon of pure energy.

"Evil Inferno!" Daemon shouted, unleashing a powerful inferno against even more eyes.

"Great, it's as if even our power isn't enough," Anubimon commented, slicing through a large number of eyes with his swords.

"Yeah, I might need to go to Mega," OmegaShoutmon told his partner through the experimental feature on the digivice.

_"We shouldn't need to. I've already scanned TysiachaGlazkovmon and his power level should be low enough for you all to defeat him without you having to go to Mega. As it is, you and AeroVeedramon can defeat Megas on your own, anyway."_

"Yeah, but this ain't a normal Mega! We should biomerge as soon as possible," the golden dragon said, rapidly dispatching a large number of eyes as well as zombie digimon that TysiachaGlazkovmon had created. "This isn't getting any easier."

_"Okay, if you insist. I thought you didn't want to use our Mega form unless it was absolutely necessary. You said something about it being too easy."_

"Well, this is too hard!" OmegaShoutmon shouted. The Ultimate was having far too difficult of a time dealing with this enemy.

Unfortunately, well before his partner could get there, he felt something go through his back. "No!" Apparently a Matadormon had snuck up on him and stabbed him, slicing clean through the other side. Matadormon weren't particularly strong Ultimates, either, making this whole thing seem extremely pathetic in the eyes of the gold-clad Ultimate.

"Shoutmon!" his partner yelled out, running for him.

Unfortunately, neither one was safe from the eyes that went after them. Mr. Immortal was teleported into TysiachaGlazkovmon's main eye while OmegaShoutmon's data was assimilated into the abomination itself, bit by bit.

Then the abomination feasted upon the energy inside Mr. Immortal's body, biomerging and ascending to a higher form. The eyes stayed where they were but the central one became RuinSphinxmon, a black, skeleton-like digimon wearing the attire of an Egyptian pharaoh.

###  
"No!" Mr. Immortal shouted, sitting up in bed. Shoutmon got up himself and looked at him.

"Bad dream?" he asked, getting a nod from his partner. "I had one where I was torn up into a million pieces and forced to fight everyone in my corrupted Mega form."

The blond was breathing heavily and sweating profusely, so he decided to get up and head into the bathroom. He splashed some cold water on his face.

That battle… It really shouldn't have happened like that. He had heard how strong TysiachaGlazkovmon was from reports in his original timeline, so he should have gone all out, using InfinityShoutmon. It would have been easier, especially since RuinSphinxmon nearly gave the others a run for their money.

He was amazed they had defeated him.

The blond looked at himself in the mirror. He was definitely muscular, though the body hair would have turned off any girl that saw him. The same could be said about his muscles. There were times when he wished he could have let go of that decision to remain single and settled down, but he realized he would outlast any girl he married.

That is unless he took her to the digital world and she stayed there long enough. The Tamers of Shinjuku could realistically live forever themselves since they had enough data inside of them for a biomerge, provided someone programmed their data with the proper methods to maintain their bodies indefinitely like Mr. Immortal did with his.

He took a deep breath. The road ahead was long.

The man picked up his digivice as he walked back into his room, looking at it and remembering his long life. He smiled on all the good times he had and all the interesting people he had met. The thing was that he refused to let himself go down into any sort of depression, so he tried to think about and meditate on the blessings he had over the years. Shoutmon looked up at him as he did so. True, Mr. Immortal's partner didn't remember everything, however at least they had each other.

They had each other even as everything turned into chaos.

A swat team came in, everyone holding their guns and pointing on the blond American.

"Freeze! You will come with us!" they yelled.

"What's the crime?" the man asked, not buying what was happening. After a few long seconds, he held his hands up. "What did you come in here to arrest me for?"

"For interfering in the lives of normal citizens by giving them partner digimon," the lead Swat member said.

"I only gave one digimon away in Japan and that guy wanted it. There's no law against that," the immortal objected, having looked up any info he could find already just in case. This SWAT team leader must have been anti-digimon.

"You will come or you will be shot, do you understand?" the Swat member yelled.

Mr. Immortal looked around and said something in English, something none could understand. "Emergency Exit Activate."  
Suddenly, he and his partner were gone, pulled through by means of a program on his digivice. The event was recorded as a rapid burst bio-emergence by Hypnos, but he didn't go to the digital world. He went somewhere else.

###

"Estee Lauder," Miki said, naming her favorite kind of make-up.

"Never heard of it," Tadashi replied. They were walking through a field full of tall grass. There didn't seem to be any digimon going after them so that was a good sign. Mountains full of fog and mist could be seen in the distance.

"You've never heard of my favorite brand of make-up?" the girl asked in disbelief.

"I'm a guy. I've never heard of half the brands of shoes you like. Vera's Wang, Sonoma, Croft and Burrito…"

"Barrow! And don't put Vera in the possessive!" Miki shouted.

"I like Burrito better," Tadashi mumbled, grinning. He was tired of all this criticism he was getting from Miki for not knowing all this girl stuff. She should give him a break. He has one brother, no sisters.

"You know, it's going to suck when you're older," the girl told him, rolling her eyes.

Tadashi stuck his tongue out at her playfully. She responded in kind.

"So, where are we headed, anyway?" the girl asked.

"The Dimensional Corridor. I was thinking of finding it and then finding the others in the real world," Tadashi explained.

"Come on, we've been walking for days!" the dark-haired girl complained. Tadashi gave her a look. It would be amazing if either of them survived the day.

Still, at least she wasn't making pot shots about his weight anymore.

As it was, she seemed to stop making remarks about looks period except for when she mentioned the aforementioned make-up products and shoes. Tadashi had no idea why women obsessed about shoes so much. And jewelry. He'd be lucky if he actually managed to wear a wedding ring after marriage.

He pulled out his digivice. He noticed every time that the biggest pink dot tended to be the Dimensional Corridor and they only had a little bit more to go. He smiled at that one.

"Can we take another rest," Miki asked.

_We've taken ten today,_ Tadashi thought, feeling slightly irritated. He had been keeping track. Still, he knew that a good team didn't have much dissension so he figured he'd work on that with the dark-haired girl. "Okay," he said and the dark-haired girl sat down.

"That's better. My calves are starting to hurt so much," she told him. "Reminds me of that time we walked through those ruins."

"Yeah." Tadashi thought about how Yuji complained every inch of the way and how Taizou wanted to stay longer, probably to decipher those texts. They were gibberish to Tadashi, anyway, even when Agumon Hakase read the one line off the wall.

"Excuse me for a second," the blond said. "I need to take a leak."

"Um, okay. See you later," the girl replied as Tadashi walked off with his partner. Eventually he found a tree and unzipped his pants. It was only after he had finished that he saw what was on the other side.

It was a massive cliff and right there was the temple that housed the dimensional corridor.

"Miki! I found it!" he exclaimed, running back to where he had left the dark-haired girl.

"Um, your barn door's open," the girl told him and he zipped his pants back up, his face flushing in embarrassment. The blond led the dark-haired girl to the cliff. "Wow, that's quite the view."

It really was. The valley seemed to be filled with mist and hills.

"Okay, ready to go down there?" he asked. "There's a TV nearby, so we might be able to use that to get to the real world once we investigate it."

"Are you really going to leave Yuji and Taizou behind?" the girl asked.

"We'll get them. I just wanted to check this out for after," he explained. "Plus there's that whole thing with the fact that the guy's surrounded by control spires and has his own army of Ultimates around him."

"Right," the girl responded.

It was then that they heard an explosion. Tadashi tackled Miki out of the way just as a ball of hot magma hit right where she was at. "Tadashi! What was that?" the girl shouted. Then the blond screamed. The dark-haired girl noticed that he was injured with a serious-looking burn on his right leg.

She pulled him away and digivolved her partner. "Digivolution Activate!"

"Syakomon digivolve to… Ranamon!" the shellfish yelled, turning into her Champion form.

The girl looked down into the valley to see what was coming. It was a large dragon that looked as if it was covered in rock and lava. There were what looked like volcanos on its back, each bursting with molten rock and fumes. The digimon wasn't that close, but she could tell that it was headed their way.

She had to face it without Tadashi, since the blond looked like he was in serious pain.

"Ranamon, take this guy down," she said before turning toward Coronamon. "Coronamon, get your partner out of the way."

"I can help," Tadashi tried to say through the pain.

"Tadashi, you're injured," the girl replied. What was this? She was genuinely concerned about him, not caring that he wasn't all that good-looking.

The girl turned away. She felt ashamed that she judged him and the others. He had just saved her life.

There was no way she was going to let this enemy digimon take them down.

"That digimon is Volcdramon, Ultimate Level," Tadashi told her as Coronamon tried dragging him away.

An Ultimate… she should have known. Looking on this digimon's body, she noticed a dark spiral.

"I see you've encountered one of my slaves," she heard someone say. Looking to her left, by the tree that Tadashi used earlier was a teenage boy with medium-length brown hair and wearing a brightly colored outfit, which really threw her off. In Miki's opinion, he was kind of hot but she didn't want to take any chances.

"Okay, who the heck are you?"

"The Digimon Emperor, of course. I just noticed you from a distance by means of Volcdramon and decided to pay a visit," the Emperor said, smiling madly.

"So, you're David Symanski, huh? I didn't expect you to be so good-looking," the girl replied. "But, you attacked me and my friend and if he hadn't gotten me out of the way, I would have been char." Then she realized something. "We're speaking English, aren't we?"

"There's a Wizardmon nearby. I had him transfer my language skills to you," the Emperor explained. "And, by the way, I prefer Damien."

_This guy's kind of a jerk. Great, now I have to choose between the ugly nice guy and the hot jerk,_ the dark-haired girl thought.

"I see you think I'm good looking," Emperor Symanski told her, smiling charmingly. The girl was somewhat attracted by him. He read her mind. "If you want, you can become my queen and I can give you everything you want."

Miki felt tempted by the offer, a temptation that was only getting stronger by the moment.

"Miki, think of Ayaka," Ranamon told her partner.

_Ayaka… She wouldn't approve of this. _The dark-haired girl thought of how she reacted to the blonde's advice the other day while they were flying on Zeppelinmon. She stormed away because she didn't like it.

She didn't even think of her friend's feelings then.

And then there was Tadashi who was injured because he saved her. He also saved her from the Emperor's armies a couple days earlier.

_Why do I treat him so badly? He hasn't gotten along with me but that was because I treated him like dirt._

"My offer still stands," the Emperor told her, giving off that cute smile that made him seem to sparkle in her eyes.

The dark-haired girl closed her eyes, frowned and then looked at him angrily.

"You attacked me and my friends just because we were there, you kidnapped at least two of them and you hurt Tadashi. There is no way I'm going to join you," she told the hologram point blank.

"You don't even like Tadashi!" the man exclaimed in confusion, giving the girl a grimace that marred his cuteness. "Oh, well, I'll give you an offer. Come with me and Tadashi can go to the real world where he will stay. Don't and Volcdramon will destroy both of you."

The Emperor really didn't want to accidentally force another digivolution to Ultimate, however, he also didn't want the Tamers to use this to go to his ally's world as well and that kind of trumped his earlier plans. Not that they'd survive very long there since his ally can control Megas…

"I won't go with you. Ranamon?" she asked.

"Oh, and one last thing," the Emperor said, snapping his fingers. Another Control Spire popped up and Ranamon devolved back to her rookie form of Syakomon. "Nothing like a little handicap to help with the odds. You really should have accepted my offer."

###

A woman woke up early in the evening, checking her digivice since its alarm got off. It had the words "¡Emergencia!" with the location of the emergency, the Brigade Compound.

The woman immediately got up and dressed, putting on her work clothes since she felt she might need them. She was wearing dress slacks, a white shirt and a black suit jacket that fit her svelte form quite well. Her name was Katarina Xanthopoulos, a woman who was born in Greece but who moved to Spain at a young age and currently lived in Barcelona.

"Active Puente Digital. Brigade Compound," the woman shouted out in Spanish before disappearing into thin air along with her partner who was nearby.

The woman made it to the front of the compound and turned her key. She hoped that this was a real emergency and not Mr. Immortal testing out new features again.

She walked through the well-furnished reception area and into the living areas where she found a man lying on the couch, sleeping.

_Oh, you've got to be kidding me. Did he touch the emergency button in his sleep again? _ The woman thought to herself before walking over to the muscular man and shaking him.

"Levantate." _Get up, _she told him.

"¿Qué sucede?" _What's happening? _The man asked. "Ay, claro, eres tú. ¿Cómo te va?" _Oh, it's you. How are you doing?_

"Muy bien, Señor Inmortal. ¿Qué haces aquí?" _Very well, Mr. Immortal. What are you doing here? _the woman asked, slightly irritated that he woke her up toward the beginning of her nice sleep.

"Lo siento, amiga. Necesitaba tu ayuda. Los japoneses quieren arrestarme." _Sorry, my friend. __I need your help. The Japanese want to arrest me._

"¿Qué hiciste esta vez?" _What did you do this time? _The woman asked in an annoyed tone.

"Nada… Bueno, di un compañero a un muchacho de dieciocho años de edad, pero no hay nada que diga que sea ilegal. Sé que piensas que soy criminal, pero no hice nada. Lo juro."_ Nothing… Okay, I gave a partner to an eighteen-year-old kid, but there was nothing that said it was illegal. I know you think I'm a criminal, but I didn't do anything_. _I swear._

The woman rolled her eyes. And to think she found him attractive with that hairy, overly muscled physique and that short blond hair that got long and bushy if he didn't get it cut after only a couple weeks or those gorgeous blue eyes. Okay, she found him attractive. She just liked playing with him.

"¿Hay más que vengan?" _Is there anybody else coming,_ she asked, curious. And the man was wearing nothing but blue boxers. She hadn't even seen him without a shirt off before, so she had no idea he had such gorgeous abs. Who cared if they were covered in body hair?

"No, nadie más viene por ahora. Antonio Guevara va a llegar más tarde, pero no viene hasta después de escuela." _Nobody else is coming for now. Antonio Guevara's going to come later, but not until after school_, he told her, confused.

"Bueno, aquí estamos, solos, salvo nuestros Digimons. Podemos hablar." _Well, we're here alone, except for our Digimon. We can talk. _She moved toward him sensually, smiling widely.

Mr. Immortal knew that this woman was somewhat infatuated with him. After all, what girl doesn't want to marry an immortal, though most of the time those immortals are vampire stalkers. "Like a date?" the man finally slipped into English by accident.

"Of course, like a date," the woman responded in an accent that the blond found incredibly sexy. Unfortunately, he had that whole rule against dating or anything since he would most definitely outlast her unless she somehow gained the ability to live forever as well. "But first, I have to find you some clothes. This place hasn't been stocked yet, hasn't it?" She really surprised him with that answer.

"So, you're not going to make out on the couch?" Shoutmon asked.

"Of course not. There's no way I'm doing that in front of the poor Digimon," she replied, turning to her red bird-like partner. "Isn't that right, Muchomon?"

Mr. Immortal looked frightened beyond belief. At least this one didn't appear naked inside his bedroom like that one time when he was camping among Indians and the chief decided to give him one of his daughters as a gift.

The woman was pretty good-looking too, which was why it was a shame he had to decline and possibly cause her great shame in front of the rest of the tribe.

"You're thinking of King Solomon's daughter, aren't you?" Shoutmon asked, narrowing his eyes and recalling a similar incident. Mr. Immortal was surprised that his partner remembered that one.

"Not quite. This one was a couple hundred years ago, not three thousand," Mr. Immortal replied.

"I don't remember that one. I only remember bits and pieces," the dragon responded. It was about that time when the woman returned with clothes that would hopefully fit Mr. Immortal's body.

"I'm not sure these are the correct size, but I hope they'll work. I'm surprised, though. This place looks fully stocked," the woman commented, handing the man folded clothes consisting of a blue t-shirt and some grey sweatpants. They weren't that great but they'd work for now. She looked away as he put them on.

"Fully stocked? I didn't have that happen." It was then that they heard a combination of footsteps and a cane head toward them. The two humans and their partners looked toward the noise to see the Old Clock Shop Man and his partner. The Watchmaker was grinning wildly at him.

"I did," the old man told them right as they saw him.

###

Coronamon only had one shot at doing what he was about to do. Since the Emperor was only focusing on Miki at the moment, Tadashi decided to use that distraction to have the small lion take out that control spire. The digimon climbed down, being careful not to be spotted by Volcdramon. As soon as he reached the bottom, Tadashi slid the 'Iron Drill' card, quietly, only mouthing the words 'Digi-Modify, Iron Drill Activate!' so as not to alert the Emperor to what he was doing.

And so far, it was all working. Coronamon made his way to the Control Spire and plunged the drills into it, causing them to spin and causing the Control Spire to crack and spark.

###

Miki heard the Dark Tower crumble, causing her to look toward it in surprise and then back to Tadashi. What was it she felt? Gratitude?

The Emperor glared at Tadashi. "Well, look at that. You actually thought of a way around my Control Spires," the brown-haired teen told him.

"Uh, yeah. What did you think I was doing while you were talking to Miki? Just sitting here?" the blond responded, grinning widely despite his pain. "Besides, I kind of knew that you'd pull something off like that so I had Coronamon go straight down there."

"Digivolution Activate!" Miki yelled out, dodging Volcdramon's attack. She was ready to do this.

"Syakomon digivolve to… Ranamon!"

"Digivolution Activate!" Tadashi called out, sitting on the ground.

"Coronamon digivolve to… Firamon!"

"You think you've won?" the Emperor asked.

"No, not yet," Tadashi told him before turning to the dark-haired girl with words of encouragement. "Miki, you can do this. And… Good job."

Miki smiled. "By the way, I'm sorry… for everything."  
The blond smiled back and the girl felt a tear come down her streak.

"There's no way you're going to hurt my friend, you jerk!" she told the Emperor and a green glow appeared, coming from her digivice.

David Symanski glared at her, his face seething with anger. "If you say so… Volcdramon, get them, now! Fry them for all I care!"

"Volcanic Fountain!" the digimon yelled out, shooting a plume of lava at them which was intercepted by Firamon.

"No," Miki muttered.

"Watch as you lose this battle," the Emperor told her, grinning madly. "Then you'll have no choice but to come with me."

The girl glared at him and her digivice burst into green light.

Sincerity…

**SUPER DIGIVOLUTION_**

"Ranamon digivolve to…" The new digimon was a large squid with a woman jutting out where the squid's beak would normally be, though it had basically the same coloration as Ranamon but with some purple. The digimon had numerous tentacles as well as a pointed head and numerous eyes around the center of the digimon. Miki didn't think it was all that pretty of a digimon but at least she knew that it was strong enough to take on Volcdramon. "… Calamaramon!"

The dark-haired girl smiled at her partner and then back at Tadashi. If it weren't for his partner destroying the Control Spire, this wouldn't have happened.

"Destroy his spiral, Calamaramon!" Miki cheered her partner on, not caring what it looked like compared to her Champion form.

"Acid Ink!" the squid shouted, barfing up black ink at the enemy digimon in front of them, damaging him. Thankfully he wasn't that fast, but he still managed to sneak in an attack.

"Circle of Death!" the digimon yelled out, unleashing a massive cloud of sulfur. Tadashi immediately covered his nose and mouth, but still some of the smell got in. He immediately noticed the injured Firamon faint and de-digivolve at the bottom of the cliff. Miki was holding a handkerchief over her mouth.

"Talk about smelly. Take him out Calamaramon!" she shouted, taking off her handkerchief before putting it back over her nose and mouth.

The Legendary Warrior of Water knew what to do. She withdrew into her body and started spinning extremely fast. "Titanic Tempest!"

The attack hit the spiral on the enemy digimon's leg, shattering it. Immediately, his personality returned and he turned toward the others.

"Thank you for freeing me from the Emperor. I am Volcdramon, guardian of this valley," he said calmly in a booming voice.

Tadashi was surprised at that one and so was Miki. This turned out to be an easier battle than expected.

###

The bell rang and Antonio Guevara reminded his students of their homework assignment for the weekend. "Do the exercises on page 172 of the textbook. They're optional but they'll give you some experience with using templates such as the Vector class and the List class. Have a nice weekend!" He smiled at the end as students poured out of his classroom.

Seeing everyone was gone, he checked his digivice.

"Emergency. Brigade Compound?" The man decided to go straight home and pick up Veemon first, which was just what he did.

###

"So, what is Antonio Guevara like?" Katarina asked as she searched through the cupboards inside the Brigade Compound.

"Well, I've been friends with him for nearly twenty years and I can tell you he's definitely a good guy. He's 37 years old and was married once, but it didn't work out so he's single right now, even after more than 14 years," Mr. Immortal explained. The clothes were a little tight on him, but they'd suffice for now until he got some better ones. He was looking through the pantry. "Yeah, this is definitely well stocked."

"Glad you could verify that I was telling the truth," the old man told them.

"Well, you tend to lie at times. Hey, where's Mizuki?" the blond asked.

"Oh, well, she's doing a few jobs for me," the Watchmaker responded, chuckling a little bit.

"So, anyway, I remember hearing about Professor Guevara through the Saxum network a couple weeks ago. Didn't his son get stuck in the digital world?" the Greek woman inquired.

"Yeah, sad story those two. They didn't even know the other existed until late last summer," Mr. Immortal responded. "He's had some duds as far as relationships over the years so he's basically been single ever since because of it. Why, you interested in him?"

"No, I'm interested in you. Besides, I have to know what he's like before we go to the Digital World to take on this triumvirate with him," Katarina replied.

"Ah… He has a big, dysfunctional family so you probably wouldn't want to marry him anyway. He's really close to them. Didn't use to be that way." Then Mr. Immortal turned toward the Watchmaker. "So, what's the point of this?"

"Yes, well, I think it's about time for you to initiate the Brigade," the old man informed the blond.

Mr. Immortal stared at the Watchmaker for a few seconds before formulating a reply. "You've got to be kidding me."

"I'm definitely not." The old man pulled a flash drive out of his pocket. "This has the names of a hundred Tamers that are homeless, either forced on the streets by their parents or having been imprisoned by their governments. I would suggest starting with Phillip Flindt from Denmark. His partner's a Wisemon and so he should be able to transfer language skills among the Tamers."

"Phillip Flindt… I knew an exchange student by that name in High School," Mr. Immortal remarked. "Been so long ago. If I remember right, he was born in Sri Lanka."

"That's definitely not him. This one is blond and Nordic," the Watchmaker informed him.

"You know, I wasn't planning on setting up the Brigade for another year. Plus, Tony might object to this on the basis of the whole child soldiers problem."

"Well, lucky for you they're mostly in their late teens. None of them are under the age of fifteen with the exception of…" the old man explained, pausing just as a familiar face walked in with a Veemon. Mr. Immortal looked at his friend.

"Good, you showed up," Mr. Immortal told Antonio Guevara.

"So, what happened?" he asked, concerned.

"Well, I got kicked out by the Japanese. There's no way I'm going to be able to go back there. I guess Yamaki doesn't take too kindly to giving people eggs," the blond explained. "Oh, and this is the Watchmaker."

"Glad to meet you," Antonio said, arching an eyebrow, not really genuine in his sincerity.

"Well, we've already met, but you don't recognize me," the old man responded, chuckling a little bit.

"Yeah, you do seem kind of familiar," Veemon told him.

"And this is Katarina," Mr. Immortal said, indicating the Spanish woman.

"¡Hola! It is a pleasure to meet you," the woman responded, shaking Antonio's hand.

"Nice to meet you too," this time the big man smiled. "So, you're the fifth member of our team, huh?"

"Well, yes, Mr. Immortal did invite me. You speak very good English, by the way." She smiled back.

"Yeah, this one can be a bit flirtatious," Mr. Immortal warned his friend.

"What? I wasn't flirting with him," the woman responded with a confused look before smacking the blond on the arm lightly.

Antonio nodded. "So, when can you give me a tour of this place?" he asked.

"Any time. So, when should we start up the Brigade?" Mr. Immortal inquired of the Watchmaker.

The old man laughed. "As soon as possible. You'll need to train these Tamers, you know? Plus, you need personnel. Maybe those two from Japan can come, though they need a little more experience. I can give them that, you know?"

"I'm sure you can. What do you plan on doing?" Mr. Immortal wasn't sure what to think of having the old man on their side.

"Well, I'm going to take them to a Digital World where time flies by faster. It's mostly under the rule of a Digimon Emperor and there are Ta… er, Digidestined there that have been fighting for nearly four hundred years from their point of view. They're currently a little weakened though, since the lone female in their group had to go to the nearby real world to have a baby, but I'm sure they'll enjoy the company." The old man grinned widely. Now none of the group knew what to think of this. "Then again, I might send Kurita and Rinchei to the opposite side of that world and hide their digivice signals. Still, it should be a good exercise for them."

There was an uneasy silence for the better part of a minute. "Be sure to actually ask them beforehand. I don't want them waking up in a dangerous world without knowing why they got there," Mr. Immortal told the Watchmaker.

"Ah, you're no fun! I was just going to drop them off and return in thirty minutes, which would be thirty days for them," the old man informed him before chuckling wildly. "So, how about that tour? We have a weight room, by the way," Mr. Immortal asked the duo.

"That sounds like a great idea," Katarina commented, imagining the sight of the blond without a shirt.

"You know, you just cut into my work-out time so that does sound like a good idea. I'm assuming this place has showers for when I'm done, right?" Antonio inquired, hopeful.

"Yeah, though I cheapened out and didn't add any partitions. I don't want to spend _all _my money that I've saved for the better part of three hundred years on this place," the blond commented, leading the way.

The old man chuckled as they left. "Yes, this will be a good place to stay until the end. Maybe I should call my other self just in case the time comes."

###  
Coronamon followed as he, Syakomon and their two Tamers made it to the nearest television. He was glad to be feeling better after everything that happened but his partner still concerned him. Tadashi had suffered severe burns on his right leg and, because of that, was walking with a limp.

Hopefully they would find a way to deal with that. Thankfully the television was just a little bit away so he could get medical attention if need be.

The lion was also glad to see that Miki was treating him at least a little bit better since he saved her earlier that day. She also seemed to be smiling a bit, something that she hadn't done since they got stuck together a mere couple days earlier.

"So, where do you think this leads?" the dark-haired girl asked Tadashi once they made it to the television.

"Somebody's house. Either that or we'll land in a school or something," the blond replied, pressing the on button on the television. Then he held up his digivice to the television. "Digi-port Open!"

In a blinding light the two Tamers and their partners landed in the middle of a bedroom. "Wow, that wasn't expected," Coronamon commented, getting up off the ground.

"You know, I wonder what country we're in," Miki said, looking around the Digimon Emperor's bedroom. "Wow, this is kind of nice."

Just then the door opened and an unfamiliar brunette with thick glasses who looked to be of European decent entered in along with a scarf-wearing pink rabbit. She was somewhat surprised but at the same time not really. So, she asked a question.

"Are you Ed's friends that are still in the Digital World?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah," Tadashi responded.

"Two of them, anyway," Miki added. She was still surprised to be speaking English since she didn't put any effort into learning it in school.

"Well, I'm glad to meet you guys. My name's Abby and I'm a digidestined from this world," she introduced herself with a smile.

"Uh, glad to meet you, Abby. So, uh, where are Ed and the others, anyway?" Tadashi inquired.

"They're currently staying in a cheap hotel," the brunette responded. "Cutemon, can you lead the way for them after healing Tadashi's leg?"

###

"We are _not _doing this!" Antonio exclaimed after hearing his friend explain what the Watchmaker suggested. The two of them were sitting on a bench in the locker room after a workout, having gotten showered and dressed already.

"I know, but the Watchmaker said…" Mr. Immortal was cut off by his best friend.

"I don't care! You told me that guy can travel between worlds. He probably knows where my son is and isn't doing anything about him." The heavy man was pretty adamant, gesturing widely. He took a gulp of water from a bottle before continuing. "Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if he knew where the original team of Tamers was."

"Last I asked him, he didn't. There's something you have to know about the old man: he sees things differently than us due to his age," Mr. Immortal told the curly-haired man.

"Right… You're four times as old as he is," Antonio objected, getting up to head out.

"Okay, you got a point, but he has more experience with hard decisions. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if he saw the future and decided not to act because things would be better that way," the blond replied as he followed Antonio out of the locker room.

"Here's the thing: setting up this brigade with all these homeless kids would be tantamount to using child soldiers. There's no way I'm going to let anyone like my son end up screwed up because of us." The large Chilean was gesturing wildly and emphatically as they walked.

"I agree with you," Mr. Immortal responded.

"Now, come on, there's no way we should let that happen. I know you've never had kids in four-thousand years, but you have to have known tons of people who did," Antonio reasoned.

"I've seen many generations grow up," the blond replied. "I was even close enough to some of those families to know them as if their kids were my own."

"No way are we going to the digital world with these kids," Antonio said they entered into the mess hall.

Mr. Immortal thought about it for a second. "No, we aren't. But what if we brought them here anyway?" he suggested.

The curly-haired man thought about that for a second. "What are you saying?"

"What if we brought them here and helped them. Gave them a home and food. True, we would have to stock everything up and we'd probably fail, but at least we'd have Kurita and Rinchei helping." Mr. Immortal chuckled. "Oh, man, and to think I've always wanted a kid of my own…"

The heavy man noticed something missing. "Where's Katarina?"

"She went back home to Barcelona to finish her night's sleep," the blond responded. "So, what do you think of her?"

"I think she likes you," Antonio replied.

"You and I both know that will never happen," Mr. Immortal said with a smile.

"That's true," the heavy man said. "Still, she seems like a nice lady. I look forward to having her on our team." Then the curly-haired man wondered something else. "How long have you known her?"

"About eight years," the blond responded. "She had just started college and, well, she somehow got a partner digimon."

"Eight years ago?" Antonio asked. "And you didn't tell me this."

"Nope, Tony, I didn't," Mr. Immortal replied.

Then the heavy man realized something else. "This was around the time you came back."

The blond nodded. "That it was. I went to the digital world in the early nineties and… well… I had a little trouble getting back. Somehow I ended up coming through the computer Katarina was using. She demanded to know what was going on."

Antonio looked away. "You didn't take her to the digital world, did you?"

The blond chuckled. "Maybe… She was definitely a bit early for a Tamer. I had her swear to secrecy until the Devas showed up." Mr. Immortal smiled and shook his head. "Funny, ever since then, she's been practically in love with me."

Antonio grinned. "You're a lucky guy."

"Unlucky, actually. She'll grow old while I stay young. I… I don't want that to happen."

The black-haired man looked down at the table they were sitting at. "It's better to be loved then lost, than never to be loved at all. At least that's how I think the saying goes."

Mr. Immortal shook his head. "I never told you this, but I was married once. Her death… it was the hardest thing for me to deal with. It was as if a part of me was torn away." The blond's eyes started to water and he shook his head again. "There's no way I'm going through that again. I don't want to be married to someone else unless they're also going to live forever like I am."

Antonio could understand, somewhat. "Who was she?"

The blond chuckled. "Her name was Tamar. Had pretty eyes too."

Antonio couldn't resist a laugh. "Well, maybe if you can transfer that upgrade of yours to her digivice…"

"It's not going to work. It was written in a different programming language," Mr. Immortal explained.

"Couldn't you just deactivate it and age normally?" the heavy man asked.

"Tried it once. It felt like I was committing suicide. Not to mention, I started getting every disease in the book," the blond explained before smiling. "Plus, if I continued, I wouldn't have met you or any of the other friends over the years. Heck, I think the benefits definitely outweigh the negatives. What I'm dealing with is just the consequences of living forever in a world full of imperfect people who can't."

Antonio thought about it for a second. Sure, he wanted to live forever. He had far too much to do for one lifetime. He could definitely do it alone, even if it meant leaving his son behind. But he wanted to help his friend out. Plus, that program would make a good program for any of the kids to have in case they were forced to go to the digital world.

"Can I have the program?" the large man asked. Mr. Immortal looked at him in surprise.

"Sure," the blond responded, handing him his D-Arc. "Take my digivice with you. I'm not going anywhere."

Antonio accepted it. He looked forward to whatever happened next as well as going through and seeing what the program was like.

###

After everything was said and done and the only ones at the Brigade Compound were him, Shoutmon, the Watchmaker and Clockmon, Mr. Immortal sat at his desk, thinking.

He hoped that Antonio succeeded at his plans to get that program off the digivice and set it up so that if they all got stuck in the digital world, at least they'd be safer than if they didn't have the program.

Of course, he thought about what would cause them to get stuck in the digital world in the first place. He knew that if the Watchmaker was there, things couldn't be good. The man had something up his sleeve and knew something; otherwise he wouldn't have been so adamant about starting up the brigade.

He opened up one of his desk's drawers and pulled out a square device with flat sides. It was colored black with golden lines across its surface and a square screen in the middle as well as a couple of golden buttons just below the screen.

"So, what do you think, Shoutmon?" the blond asked his partner.

"Uh, to be honest, I agree with Antonio. We shouldn't be building an army," the red dragon responded and the blond nodded in response.

"Yeah, that's why we'll just get them here to get out of harm's way and hopefully turn them into productive citizens," the ancient man replied. "What do you think the Watchmaker's doing here?"

"He's preparing everyone for something," Shoutmon responded before shrugging. "I have no idea what."

"You're right, something's coming," Mr. Immortal told his partner.

His ideas of what the man could possibly know irked him to no end. Yet the most frightening of them all, one that could come far too early, was summed up in a single word.

_Unification…_

###

A/N: Believe it or not, I was at one point considering making Ranamon's Ultimate form Mermaidmon. However, the last time I looked at that digimon's design, I didn't really like it that much for some reason. Maybe it looks better on TV. Heh. Still, I have a Mega form thought out for her. That's better than I can say for another character.

And then there's the Mr. Immortal storyline… Thankfully he hasn't taken over the plot. In fact, I plan on ending his arc before that happens. Hopefully his storyline makes sense and will fit in well with the rest of the plot. I have a plan to connect it with everything, especially the Multiverse storyline.

And if you're wondering why the digimon aren't talking as much… I'm hoping to change that next chapter. They definitely have more of a role in that one and Cutemon speaks!


	20. Land of Shadows

Chapter 20: Land of Shadows

###

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, just the OCs.

###

**World 2-0 (Tamer's Universe)**

He walked across the land of crystal and onto the gondola that led to the most reasonable of the sovereigns. He hoped this plan worked since he didn't have his partner digimon with him. He took everything in as he moved forward. It wasn't often that he would see such things.

He appreciated the beauty and the incursion of the large number of rogue Tamers on this world astounded him to no end. He hated the Digimon Queen and despised the Legendary Tamer despite once being his ally. Ever since that man came to this world, he had been ordering all the Tamers to destroy villages needlessly. Villages that were being dominated by the Dragonlord in the first place. He was at least glad that Crimson's digimon didn't take part in it.

The gondola stopped and the white-hooded figure walked forward on toward the blue palace of Azulongmon.

Eventually, he entered. He hoped that the fact that he didn't have any digimon with him proved to the giant dragon that he was an ally.

He spoke English in a British accent as soon as he found Azulongmon, roosting inside the palace.

"I am Harbinger and I am here to warn you that once the Dragonlord falls, the Triumvirate will be here next," he spoke in a cultured accent.

"And yet the Triumvirate's forces withdrew. How are you sure that they will come here again?" the blue dragon asked, doubting the man in front of him.

"I came to the Digital World with the Triumvirate leader who has taken the title of the Legendary Tamer for himself. However, I am disgusted by what he has done," the white-cloaked figure stated. "Please accept my warning and evacuate to the planet. I will try my best to bring the Triumvirate down from within, but at the moment I can't do it. I will attempt to turn some of the Legendary Tamer's forces against him in the meantime."

"I will tell the other sovereigns. At the very least, _I _will evacuate to the surface," Azulongmon assured him.

"Thank you, sir," Harbinger said, turning away and walking back to the gondola. He hoped that the sovereigns would see the wisdom in going to an area where they couldn't be found so easily.

Once he got off the gondola, he boarded an Airdramon that was there waiting for him and flew away.

###

**World 5-0 (Abby's World)**

"Yes, yes, of course! That's what I've been doing wrong!" Gunter shouted loudly, annoying one of the nearby baristas at the coffee-shop in the large bookstore he and Ed went to after working out and cleaning up. Currently, he was busy trying to set up some modify programs for use in the Digital World as well as in the Dark Ocean. The Tamer didn't have any cards with him, since he had left them all in Germany when he went to France.

Of course, getting the program to work so his partner could attack without accidently fainting right after using it was his top priority.

"What have you been doing wrong?" Ed asked, sitting down in front of him with a book in his hand.

"Well, it turns out that if you give your digimon higher attack power, the digimon will use more energy. In other words, you can't give your Rookie-level partner the power of a Mega without killing it," Gunter explained. "So, to use these programs, there needs to be some sort of error-handling to prevent your partner from using an ultra-strong attack when his energy level is below a certain percent, say ten, as well as only using an attack that will only deplete so much energy."

"That's interesting…" Ed replied, somewhat confused by the brown-haired teen's explanation. "What about dealing with the Control Spires once we get to the Digital World?"

"To check those out, I need to actually be around one," he explained before smelling what the black-haired boy was drinking. "Ooh, what are you drinking there?"

Ed looked at his to-go cup and answered. "Just a chai tea."

"Not sure if I've ever had that. So, anyway, I hope this will help us deal with Megas since it might be a while before we biomerge. Plus, we need to prepare in case Tadashi decides to go to the next world in our quest instead of the Dark Ocean."

"Yeah, we do…" Then Ed's device beeped, causing him to instinctively reach down and look at it. "I got mail from Ayaka. It turns out that Tadashi and Miki showed up at Abby's house."

"Awesome!" the large German exclaimed. "So, I guess we might as well head back to the hotel."

Ed nodded. He wasn't sure what to think of Gunter after everything was said and done.

###

A few minutes later, the duo made it back to the hotel. However, since Tadashi was going to be there, Ed knew he had to tell Gunter something. Thinking about how to tell it to him so that even if Tadashi heard, he wouldn't understand, the black-haired boy decided to test out how many of the Queen's abilities the German still had.

"Cualquier cosa que hagas, no digas a Tadashi quién es mi padre." _Whatever you do, don't tell Tadashi who my dad is, _Eduardo told him as they got off the bus.

"¿Quién es tu padre?" _Who's your dad? _Gunter asked in confusion, using a European accent in Spanish.

"¿Qué? ¿No sabés quién es mi padre?" _What, you don't know who my dad is? _the black-haired boy asked, surprised.

"Eh, no quiero ofenderte, pero no sé quién es tu padre." _Uh, I don't want to offend you, but I don't know who your dad is. _Then the large German sized up his friend as they walked, trying to figure out why the American would think he knew who his father was. Then he realized it. "¡Ay, caramba! ¡Eres el hijo del profesor Antonio Guevara!" _Holy crap, you're the son of Professor Antonio Guevara!_

Ed looked at him in surprise. "¿Por qué hablás en una voz tan alta? No quiero que Tadashi nos oiga." _Why are you talking so loud. I don't want Tadashi to hear us._

"¿Por qué actúas como si haya más que una persona aquí?" _Why are you acting like there's more than one person here? _Gunter questioned.

"No actúo como si haya más personas aquí que vos. ¿Por qué me preguntás eso?" _I'm not acting like there's more than one person here than you. Why do you ask me that? _Ed responded as they climbed the steps to the run-down hotel room.

"Porque usas vosotros." _Because you're using y'all,_ the large German replied.

Ed had never thought about what pronoun he was using. In fact, vosotros wasn't even used in Latin America. As far as he knew, he was talking to Gunter in Spanish in the same way that his mother and step-father talked to him.

"Pero no lo creo. Eres el hijo de Antonio Guevara. ¿Cómo fue crecer con él como padre?" _But I don't believe it. You're the son of Antonio Guevara. How was it growing up with him as a dad? _the brown-haired German inquired enthusiastically.

"Solo lo conozco desde hace seis meses, más o menos." _I've only known him for the past six months ,more or less._ Ed responded, grinning wildly as he approached the door. "Acordáte que no debés hablar a nadie de esto." _Remember that you shouldn't talk to anybody about this._

"No voy a decir nada." _I'm not going to say anything_, Gunter responded with a gesture, grinning wildly as well.

As he opened the door, he saw Abby, Tadashi, Miki, Ayaka and all of their partners. "So, how'd your shower go?" Prokyomon asked.

"We worked out and then showered," Ed replied. "And then we went to the bookstore because Gunter wanted to."

"So, the big dumb guy wanted to go to the bookstore?" Miki asked in surprise. "How does _that _work."

Everyone glared at Miki, especially Gunter. Ed was amazed that the German's icy glare didn't freeze everyone to death. Then Ayaka cleared her throat.

"Miki, Ayaka's partner cured Gunter of whatever the Digimon Queen did to him," Ed told the girl. "So, since when do you speak English?"

"Since the Digimon Emperor made me speak it to try to get me to join him," Miki explained.

That was when Gunter had an outburst. "I'll let you know, lady, that I'm not dumb. I have straight A's. Alongside German, I speak English and French fluently and I'm studying Latin."

"Not to mention Spanish," Ed added, chuckling.

"No, I don't speak Spanish. I've never even been to Spain," Gunter contradicted him. "It would be a fun place to go, though, especially Barcelona or Pamplona." He scratched his chin. "Maybe even Seville or Andalucía."

The black-haired American was taken aback by that answer. _Weren't we just speaking Spanish? He even thought I was using vosotros. _Then he realized what accent the German Tamer was using, namely, the continental accent with the whole lisp and everything.

Still, because of Gunter's rant, the dark-haired girl was humbled a little bit. Actually, she looked quite embarrassed. The large German was definitely looking at her with a bit of a glare, but it had let up somewhat. "Well, anyway, my name is Gunter Kaufmann." The brown-haired teen started to smile as he looked around. "Keramon, where are you?" He looked back at Tadashi and Miki. "My partner's probably hiding again, but he'll be back soon. I hope."

Then the little blue alien jumped out at him from behind the newcomers, landing in the large German's arms. "Horray! I'm glad you're back!"

"Me too." Gunter chuckled a little bit. "Anyway, what's up?"

"We're going to the Digital World tomorrow," Tadashi began to explain. "I just found the Dimensional Corridor and we can use it to either find Takato and the others or go to the Dark Ocean and destroy the source of these Control Spires."

"Alright!" the brown-haired teen exclaimed.

"What about rescuing Taizou and Yuji?" Ed asked with a little bit of confusion. "Shouldn't we go get them before taking on the Dark Undersea Master?"

"Are you kidding me? The Digimon Emperor's base is deep inside his territory," Tadashi responded.

"Plus, there are control spires all over the place there," Abigail added.

"So, out of curiosity, what does the base look like?" Gunter asked. "Is it a giant toilet like on the TV show?" The rest of the group burst out laughing.

"You know, I never thought of that," Ed mumbled, chuckling a little bit. "Of course, that begs the question of whether there are tons of control spires in the Dark Ocean as well."

"We'll deal with that when the time comes," Tadashi explained.

"Just one problem: how are we supposed to know that the Digimon Emperor's base gets its power from there?" Ed asked. "Not that I don't agree with you about going there, but still. I even thought about going to the Dark Ocean."

"Well, a lot of the things about the show were right so far," Abby said, smiling at her black-haired friend. "How much of Tamers matches what happened in your world?"

"From what I've seen, most of it," Ayaka replied.

"Wait, Tamers?" Tadashi asked, confused.

"In this world, Takato's adventures were on a TV Show," Ed explained, folding his arms and leaning against a nearby wall.

"What?" the blond boy responded in disbelief.

"So, that might mean that what happened on other seasons may have happened in other worlds as well," Miki deduced. "Oh, man, I totally want to meet Ken or Matt!"

"What about Tai or Davis?" Tadashi asked.

"Oh, they're nothing special," Miki replied in excitement. "Can you imagine all that bishounen goodness?"

"No, not really," the blond boy responded, narrowing his eyes at his friend. At least she wasn't criticizing him for his weight anymore.

"Oh, and by the way, I translated the rest of that passage," Gunter told the group.

"What passage?" Tadashi asked, slightly confused.

"I found a message in Latin on the wall of these ruins in the digital world," Ed explained.

"What the heck was that doing there?" Miki asked, not buying it.

"Beats me," the black-haired boy responded, shrugging.

Then Gunter told them the translation. "It said: 'Emperor Symanski is the Dimension Key. He has a sister with the crest of Light and a brother with the crest of Destiny. The Destroyer of Worlds will steal the Dimension Key.'"

"What?" Tadashi asked. "Was it some sort of prophecy?"

"Do you actually believe in that kind of stuff?" Miki inquired scornfully.

"I do, but this can't be it," Ed responded. "My thoughts are that the Watchmaker put it there or something."

"That sounds like a reasonable conclusion," Gunter said before grinning. "This makes me wonder what else he has planned."

"So, what now? When do we go?" Tadashi asked the others, who all shrugged. "When should we go?"

"How about tomorrow morning," Abby suggested. "My parents should be out of the house. I'll just need to bring you guys in so that you can use the portal."

Tadashi looked the brunette and nodded. "Sounds like a good idea to me."

"At least we have six of us to do this," Gunter told the group, causing Abby to look at her feet nervously.

Ed noticed this. "Your parents don't want you to come," he guessed and she nodded, frowning.

"Don't listen to them. We need all the help we can get!" Tadashi exclaimed.

"I even explained that my brother was in the digital world," the brunette responded. "But the answer was still no. It's too dangerous."

"Hey, you should probably respect their wishes," Ed told her. "They are right, after all."

The girl nodded at him, smiling slightly.

###

**World 2-0 (Tamer's Universe)**

David Symanski was _not _having a good day. Okay, so he was forced to come into the digital world by his friend Roger, completely disobeying his mother in the process. Then he found himself leading a team under Joey, who, in his opinion, was one of the biggest jerks in the whole of Roger's allies.

And now, to make things even worse, he was in the armpit of the digital world, trying to find out where the crush of some girl last was. He couldn't care less about the girl, and he didn't want to be there. He'd rather be at home, studying ahead so that he could make it through the eleventh grade more easily.

And then they had to detect that odd digivice signal. "Can you contact him?" David asked one of his subordinates, a tall, muscular, black man.

"You know man, that's exactly what I've been trying to do," he responded.

"Any information on this guy?" the alternate-reality version of a Digimon Emperor asked.

"Absolutely nothing," a red-haired girl responded. "I can't even tell what digimon this guy has at this range!"

"How long until we reach the portal that Eduardo and the others may have gone through?" David asked the third member of the team who was the partner of the giant red eagle they were flying on, Aquilamon.

"About five minutes. I think there's a shield up ahead," the brown-skinned guy responded. "Oh, man, that's a big one."

"How about that mysterious digivice signal? Anything?" David inquired.

"Still absolutely nothing."

A few minutes later, the group landed. "Okay, now what?" the black man asked.

"We wait and prepare ourselves. I want all our guys at Ultimate in case this guy's hostile," David told the group. The alternate version of the Emperor was ready for whatever enemy they came across. "Super Digivolution Activate!" he yelled out along with each of the others after they landed and got off Aquilamon.

"Koemon digivolve to… Gokuwmon!"

"Psychemon digivolve to… Astamon!"

"Palmon digivolve to… Lillymon!"

"Aquilamon digivolve to… Garudamon!"

They waited and the digimon revealed itself. It was a large, purple, humanoid machine with one camera-like eye in the middle of its head, spindly, grey cables attaching each of its limbs as well as metallic wings that made it look like it had a cloak on.

"Any info?" David asked.

"I'm not getting info on this guy. My guess is that he's an artificial digimon," the black guy responded.

"Hmm… You have no info on my digimon? That's not much of a surprise," a voice, an extremely haughty voice spoke from the inside of the digimon.

"Yeah, who are you and what are you here for? Were you sent by the Triumvirate to help us?" David asked, prepared to attack at a moment's notice.

"Getting straight to the point, are you?" that voice said again. Ever since the digivice upgrade, the voices of biomerged Megas haven't been dual voices like Takato and the others. Generally, they've been a single voice, sounding like a grown-up version of the rookie digimon with the voice of the Tamer showing up every so often. David had to guess that this was the voice of the Tamer.

"Tell us what you're here for or we'll open fire," David told him point blank. He wasn't going to take any chances with a potential rogue Tamer. Then again, he wished that Joey was a rogue so he had an excuse to go after him.

"Okay, I'm here for the Dimension Key," the digimon, or rather its partner responded.

"Well, we don't have it," David told him. "Of course, if you're just going to head in through the portal, we'll let you pass."

The digimon laughed. Nobody in the group liked it one bit.

"Well, it turns out that you're the key," the digimon said right after he finished laughing. "And I'm going to take you with me, Emperor Symanski. BT Laser!"

David's eyes widened as the digimon opened fire on each of his friends and their partners, killing each of them and deleting them. He was the only one left after a matter of a few seconds. Everyone else was just data, data which was promptly absorbed by this new enemy.

"You… You killed them! You monster!" he shouted out at the new enemy in front of him. It was the last thing he knew before getting knocked out.

The Destroyer of Worlds stole the Dimension Key.

###

**World 5-0 (Abby's World)**

Abigail let her new group of friends into her house. "Well, here we are," she said, giggling slightly. "It's not much but it'll do."

"Are you kidding me? This place is huge," Tadashi told her. "I just live in a cramped apartment."

"Eh, it isn't that big, but then again, I live in a mansion," Miki remarked.

"Still, it's nice to be in a new place," Coronamon commented.

The group headed into her brother's room which was relatively unchanged since the last time any of them had been in it. Of course, with how many of them there were, they were pretty cramped.

"Are you sure you don't want to come with us?" Tadashi asked Abigail.

"Like I said, my parents don't want me to go," she said.

"Don't worry, that's alright," Ed told her.

"Yeah, guess what, if you want to come, then come," Tadashi said, contradicting the black-haired boy's remark. "This might be the only chance for you to save your brother and it's the only chance you'll get."

The brunette thought about that for a second and looked at her partner. She really didn't want to disobey her parents, but the idea of going to the digital world with these guys was far too tempting. She looked down at her partner. "What do you think, Cutemon?"

"I think we should go, kyu!" the pink rabbit replied.

That increased the temptation. Finally, she couldn't bear it anymore. "Okay, I'll go."

"Are you sure?" Ed asked her. "We might be gone awhile."

"Yes, I'm sure. You guys might need my help even though I can only reach Champion. My partner can also heal." The brunette ran to the back of the house and filled her backpack with supplied before coming back. She took out her D-3 and pointed it at the computer screen. "Okay, to the Dimensional Corridor! Digi-port open!"

Instantly, the Tamers and their digimon were pulled into the screen and into the digital world. On the other side, they landed in a pile. Once they pulled themselves free, they looked around, wary that the Emperor's forces could be around. So far, though, they didn't see any Control Spires or Dark Ring-sporting digimon.

"Okay, the Corridor is over this way," Tadashi said, leading the group.

Ed didn't know what to think of Abigail coming with them. On the way to the corridor, he thought about how she didn't exactly do the right thing in disobeying her parents but at the same time, he reminded himself that he disobeyed his dad when he scanned Prokyomon's drawings while he was in Paris.

_That was different,_ he thought to himself. _I thought I might have needed him to get out of that orphanage._

He remembered that day that his digivice appeared. He didn't have a blue card to scan and his older digivice had been destroyed when the anti-digimon group decided to kidnap him at the request of his mother. He had been in Paris for about a week, the only company he had gotten being that of a French girl who didn't even speak English.

Then it appeared, almost out of thin air, a glowing sphere.

Almost instantly he grabbed his drawings of Prokyomon and his evolution line and scanned them, watching the door of that trashy room and hoping that none of the workers of that anti-digimon group-run facility came in. After they were scanned, he saw the egg on the screen and waited, checking the digivice's features. To his surprise, the device had all the same features of his old digivice.

The black-haired boy was brought out of his reverie by his partner. "So, what's up?"

"What do you mean?" Ed asked his partner.

"You look lost in thought," the raccoon replied. "You're thinking about Abby, aren't you?"

"Well, I was thinking about the day I met you and how that related to what Abby did just now," the black-haired boy responded. "You know, sometimes it can be hard to live up to my principles."

"Yeah, it can be. I guess we just have to try our best, right?" Prokyomon asked, falling into his partner's arms.

"I… I wonder if when I get back to my dad if I'll get in trouble," Ed stated, wondering what his father was doing that moment.

"Personally, I think he'll just be happy to have you back," the brown raccoon told him. "I look forward to meeting him."

Ed looked to the side to see Gunter looking at him and his partner before looking forward again.

The group continued on, for what seemed like miles until they reached the domed building that housed the Dimensional Corridor. The group headed straight for the entrance but Tadashi stopped as soon as he saw that it was blocked. "What the heck?"

"The Crest of Light," Ayaka said, looking over the large stone slab before turning to Abigail. "I think that's your crest."

"I don't even have a tag for it, though," the brunette objected, adjusting her glasses as she walked up to the obstruction. When she stopped in front of it, she noticed that her digivice was glowing pink. Then the slab glowed as well, shrinking until it was its normal size before floating over to the girl's chest. A tag formed around it and hung around her neck. "Wow…"

"I guess that answers your question," Ed told her, grinning widely. She smiled back as they entered into the domed building.

Right in the center of the building was a Heimdallmon just like in the other realities that the team of Tamers had traversed.

"Welcome to the Dimensional Corridor," the massive Mega greeted the group. "Is there any specific world you want to go to?"

"Well," Tadashi had to decide whether to ask about the next world that Kuzuhamon took Takato and the others or to request that they go to the Dark Ocean. He chose the first for now. "A Kuzuhamon traveled through here with a number of Tamers. What world did she go to?"

"I thought we were going to go to the source of the Digimon Emperor's powers," Ayaka whispered just before the powerful digimon spoke.

"They went to world 6-1," Heimdallmon informed them. "However, that world is under quarantine since it is under the control of a Digimon Emperor that has the power over vast areas of the world's surface. It is too dangerous to go to."

"Okay, then how about the Dark Ocean?" the blond requested.

"That is also under quarantine," the guardian stated. "Digital World 6-0 is under the control of the dark lord Dagomon who defeated that reality's digidestined and took over the digital world."

The group all looked in shock at the Mega for saying that. "Wait, you mean that they failed to defeat this guy?" Miki questioned in surprise.

"That's gotta suck!" Coronamon exclaimed.

"Surely, there must be a way for you to allow us there," Ed told the Mega.

"I am to allow no one in either zone," Heimdallmon informed them. "They are my orders from Yggdrasil."

"Okay, I don't know who this Yggdrasil guy is, but we need to go to one of these worlds," Gunter told him sternly. "Take us to whichever world is safer! We need to go to one of them."

"And Dagomon's only an Ultimate, so we should be able to defeat him," Tadashi told the Mega. "Take us there!"

The large digimon narrowed his eyes. "There is no way I am taking you to the Dark Ocean."

"Okay, bozo, this Dagomon guy's been creating Digimon Emperors," Miki explained in a tough tone. "So, if that's the case, you might as well send us there, now!"

Gunter immediately walked over to the circle that had the numbers '6-0' on it and stomped on it. "We're going to this world no matter what! There is no way you can stop us."

"Um, Gunter…" Ed cautioned the large German, narrowing his eyes.

"I am a Mega-level. There is no way any of you are a match for me," Heimdallmon told them before turning to Abigail and noticing the crest around her neck. "You are the bearer of the Crest of Light, one of the true Digidestined of this world. Where is your brother, the bearer of Destiny?"

"I don't know. I only have one brother and that's David," the girl told the towering giant.

"No, you have another, the bearer of Destiny, the one known as Robert," the giant explained, shocking her.

"No, that can't be. He's not my brother, just a friend," the girl stuttered, shaking her head in denial. It was impossible. He was a little older than her. For him to be her brother would mean that… The thought was unthinkable. For her whole life, her parents were happily married. The thought that her father was unfaithful… Did her mother even know about this?

"Still, I was supposed to wait for you and the bearer of Destiny," the large digimon told her before turning to the spot where Gunter still was, causing the brown-haired German to move out of the way. The Mega then stabbed the spot, opening the portal to the Dark Ocean.

"Make haste! The way to the Ocean has been opened!" Heimdallmon shouted and the six Tamers and their digimon made their way through the rainbow-colored portal, falling into it and to the other world.

###

**World 2-0 (Tamer's Universe)**

"Their last location was right outside the portal that Eduardo had gone through. Examining the crime scene drew up a single digivice, badly damaged and non-operational. However, I was able to get some data off of it." The speaker was a bespectacled red-haired girl who was a bit on the curvy side and who was wearing glasses.

"So… Any idea on who did this?" Crimson asked suavely from his platform. The building they were in had golden tiles and red walls as well as stain glass windows behind the Triumvirate.

"None. We checked the portal room and found no sign of any sort of digimon," the red-haired girl added.

"Did you figure out how to operate the portal?" the Digimon Queen inquired from her platform, thinking of sending a squad in for Ed.

"We couldn't," the girl informed the group.

"Okay, case dismissed," Roger said hurriedly, wanting to move on.

"But, come on, whoever attacked those guys might be a threat," Crimson stated. "We should follow up…"

"I said 'case dismissed!'" the red-haired teen shouted, turning away from the tribunal. "Besides, that loser's probably in some other world."

"But seriously, don't you care about bringing justice to your lost teammates?" the older teen questioned.

Roger just shrugged. "Nah, they're all expendable anyway."

Crimson was taken aback by that attitude and shook his head as the red-head walked away. Plus, the red-haired girl that was reporting to them had heard what her superior had said.

_You're going to shoot yourself in the foot, Roger. No, take that back. You're going to shoot all of us in the foot._

"You know, he does have a point about following up on this guy being kind of pointless," the Queen told him, her French accent spicing up her speech a bit. "Since we don't know how the portal works, we can't really do anything."

Crimson nodded reluctantly before the two of them left the tribunal.

The curvy red-head stood in shock at her superior's remarks.

###

**World 6-0 (The Dark Ocean)**

The team landed in the middle of a canyon. As soon as everyone lifted themselves up off the ground, they came to notice the difference between that world and the one that they had just come from. For one thing, everything was dreary beyond belief. There didn't seem to be color anywhere around them other than black, white and shades of grey. The sky also appeared to be covered in clouds.

"Wow, this place just makes me want to sleep in," Abigail remarked, yawning.

"But we need to defeat Dagomon, kyu," Cutemon told her and she smiled back at the pink rabbit.

"Don't worry. It's not as if I was actually thinking of going to sleep," the brunette told her partner before looking toward Tadashi. The blond was busy checking his digivice out.

"So, where are we headed?" Ed inquired of the lone Japanese boy currently on their team.

"Looking at this, there are two portals, both in completely opposite directions," Tadashi told the group. "I guess that means that this is a one-way trip, pretty much."

"Doing a Digimon search!" Gunter exclaimed, pressing buttons on his digivice's screen. "Oh, yeah, I think I found Dagomon!" Then he pressed a couple more buttons. "Setting up the compass function to lead us to him. You know, this digivice upgrade is awesome!"

Ed sighed. He hoped that the large German teen didn't accidently blurt out the secret he was keeping from Tadashi. So far, though, he seemed to be holding his end of the bargain.

"Alright, I'll do that search and take us there. Okay, let's go!" the blond exclaimed, leading the team toward their next enemy.

"I wonder what this guy's like," Coronamon thought out loud.

"Cthulhu, that's what. He's going to be a giant cosmic horror," Gunter told the lion-like digimon. "I bet you can't look at him or you'll go mad." Coronamon's face blanched from that one.

"This guy sounds kind of freaky!" the orange lion exclaimed in fear as the German laughed.

So the group continued to walk through the canyon, hoping to find a way out. Eventually it was starting to look like they were going to have to climb up the side of the canyon if they wanted to have a straight route to where Dagomon was, though since they didn't have any equipment for that, it was going to be too dangerous.

"Maybe we should digivolve one of our digimon to ferry us up to the top," Ayaka suggested.

"That sounds like a good idea to me," the blond responded, scratching his chin. "You know, it's times like this when I wish we were traveling inside of Blimpmon or Zeppelinmon."

"I can't agree with you more," Miki told him with a smile. "Oh, how I wish I could relax inside a nice, air-conditioned airship."

"I have to say, though, that I feel kind of cold here already," Syakomon commented, shivering.

"Yeah, no kidding," Ed responded. "It feels just a little too cold. I'd say that the temperature is somewhere in the fifties or sixties."

Abigail shivered as well. "You know, maybe we should just get on with this," the brunette suggested, not wanting to spend any more time in this place than necessary."

"She's right, kyu," Cutemon commented.

"We don't know when some of those enemies will come out of the woodwork," Ed indicated. "What were those things from the show called, anyway?"

"I remember a fanfic that called them Deadmon," the bespectacled brunette said before disclaiming her statement. "I'm not saying that the fanfic is canon or anything, but I thought it was at least interesting."

"Deadmon… Let's see what these things are really called," Tadashi said before pulling out his digivice and using it. "Digivolution Activate!" he shouted.

Nothing happened.

"What gives?" the blond asked, irritated that it didn't work.

"Prokyomon, can you climb up there and see whether there are any control spires around?" Ed requested of his partner. The brown raccoon nodded and climbed up the rocky canyon wall quickly, knowing that time was in the essence.

As soon as he got up there, he saw the area surrounding the canyon, consisting of vast plains dotted by control spires, many of them. The clouds gave way to lightning in the distance.

"Oh… crap," was Prokyomon's reaction. He stood there, stunned, looking at all the spires and taking in the view.

The digimon then hurried down the side of the canyon with his horrible news. "There are Spires everywhere!" he yelled, panicking.

"What?" Tadashi asked, dreading the decision to come to this world. For once he wondered if they should have gone after Emperor Damien instead.

"Control Spires everywhere?" Ed muttered, disbelieving. "We'll have to take care of them when needed."

"Okay, maybe we should go up there and just stay close to the Control Spires," Ayaka suggested to Tadashi.

"That's a great idea," the blond commended her. "Let's do that and if we come across any enemy digimon, we'll have all our rookies destroy the nearest Spire and then digivolve and attack the enemy digimon that we come across."

Ed nodded and so did Gunter. Miki reluctantly thought that it was a good idea as well. Abby didn't know what to truly think of this strategy but she figured it was better than nothing. Still, there was something that bugged her.

"What if by destroying the tower, we notify Dagomon of our position?" the brunette asked.

"Then I guess we should only destroy the spires if we absolutely need to," Tadashi told the American girl. "Are you guys up to this?"

"Might as well," Miki responded. "But how are we going to get up there if we can't digivolve?"

"We'll have to take the long way, I guess," the blond replied, grinning and moving forward.

So they all did.

###

A/N: Well, that begins the Dark Ocean part of the arc. I had originally written a version of Chapter 20 that involved Kurita and Rinchei in the world where Takato and the others were, but then I thought about how I had wanted Tadashi and the others to find them instead.

And so this chapter introduces a mysterious entity that I will refer to as the juggernaut. Yes, it's a digimon. It's the Mega form of a canon digivolution line. Who is the Tamer controlling it and what is he planning to do with David Symanski and his alternate counterpart? Find out soon. In a few chapters, he should be making his moves into Emperor Symanski's world. Hehehe.

The scary thing is that the whole Symanski storyline is actually an aborted arc from another story I was writing a couple years ago, Digimon Scammer: Ragnarok. Hopefully it'll work out here. There it was just part of a nasty little Kudzu plot… *shudders*

And finally, for anyone who notices the odd verb forms that Ed uses, if you've never heard of the phenomenon known as 'Voseo', look it up on Wikipedia. That explains the forms he's using. Vos is used in a lot of places in Latin America, such as Argentina, Uruguay and Nicaragua. I have a friend from Argentina named Alan who uses it all the time, for instance (he also has a cool accent. Same with the one Chilean guy I know). Still, if anybody spots any errors in usage or whatever in my Spanish, feel free to let me know in a review. I'm definitely not a native speaker, though I managed to write the scenes in this chapter and the one before without use of a dictionary.


	21. To the Ocean

Chapter 21: To the Ocean

###

Disclaimer: I definitely don't own Digimon, peeps.

###

"How long have we been walking?" Tadashi inquired.

"We got to the Dark World at about 10 AM and now it's 5:13 PM," Ayaka told him.

"Okay, I'd say it's time for a break," the blond told the group before sitting down. "Man, I kind of need to use the bathroom."

"Where is there to go?" Ed questioned. They were currently in the middle of a vast plain that they had reached after finally getting out of that canyon and it didn't seem to end. The only landmarks in view were the Control Spires, the nearest one being about a hundred feet away.

"Uh, I guess you can go behind one of those control spires," Tadashi suggested.

"Yeah, and other than that one, there are spires every mile or so, so that means that we'd all have to share one," Abby objected.

"Maybe we should take turns," Ed remarked.

"Sounds like a good idea," Gunter replied.

"Just remember to dig a hole if you go number two," Abby told the group.

"Makes sense to me," Miki said, shuddering at the thought.

"Hey, so how much food do we have?" Coronamon asked, sitting down.

"I grabbed a bunch at the store last night and filled several backpacks with it," Ayaka told the group.

"It's mostly cliff bars, granola bars and fruit, though," Ed warned. "I'm a little hungry too."

"Me too," Prokyomon said, going over and grabbing a banana from Ayaka's backpack and biting into it.

"I guess I'll go to the bathroom first. Keramon, coming?" Gunter asked his partner.

"Oh, yeah! You won't see any of those freaky things from the show going after you!" the little alien exclaimed, following his partner.

Miki noticed him leave. "I guess I'll go after him," she suggested after a few seconds, putting her sandwich down. This was her chance to make amends for her untimely remark the night before. "Coming, Syakomon?"

"But you might accidentally see something you don't like," Ayaka warned her.

"Oh please, as if he won't use the opposite side of the tower. Plus, I won't look."

###

The dark-haired girl followed the large teen from a distance, and sure enough, he used the opposite side of the obelisk so she didn't see anything. Instead, she decided to wait until he was done doing whatever and talk to him then.

She felt nervous. As it was, she didn't usually apologize, but she figured that she should since she had been treating the others like garbage and had gotten on the wrong foot with the new guy.

The girl took a deep breath when Gunter came out from behind the tower. He walked past her uncomfortably and was several feet past the dark-haired girl when she spoke.

"Gunter, I need to tell you something," she said. The brown-haired teen turned toward her, not knowing what to expect. "I'm sorry about yesterday. I didn't mean what I said."

He looked at the ground before continuing his walk.

The dark-haired girl shook her head. "Great, I try to be nice and he barely acknowledges me."

"What you said yesterday wasn't very nice, Ayaka," Syakomon told her.

"I know…" The girl took a little longer to get back.

###

After a few more hours of walking, the group decided to set-up camp. They chose a spot right by one of the Control Spires in case they were ambushed in the middle of the night or something. "Wow, it doesn't even feel like ten," Ed commented, lying down.

"No kidding," Abby replied. "It feels like noon."

Miki yawned. "Yeah, really," the dark-haired girl said groggily, falling to the ground.

"Okay, so what are the shifts for keeping watch?" Tadashi asked the group.

"I guess I could do it first," Gunter suggested. "I've spent late nights studying so I should be able to keep my eyes open."

"Yeah, and I'll do it with him," Keramon added cheerfully.

Tadashi smiled at that one. "Okay, who will do it after him?"

"I'll do it," Ayaka said. "Just wake me up around midnight, Gunter."

The tall German blushed a little. "Okay, thanks."

"I'll do it after him," Ed volunteered, determined.

"And me after him," Abby added.

"Hey, Miki, do you want that last shift?" Tadashi asked the dark-haired girl.

"Sure, why not?" Miki replied, her eyes closed as she drifted off to sleep.

###

A purple figure landed in the middle of the field in the Digimon Emperor's domain before splitting up in two. The human figure looked at his digivice.

"Well, the Dimension Key is still holding. Who said these things couldn't hold humans?" the figure questioned before snorting. "Oh, this is just great. I've detected seven signals and one of them is him. Good…"

The figure smiled madly. Soon, everything would begin.

###

The Digimon Emperor looked over his video screens and detected the humanoid figure. He looked at him in surprise. _An adult? In the Digital World? What kind of heresy is this?_

The Emperor would do nothing unless this figure posed a threat to him.

Strangely enough, the mysterious man seemed to be walking toward his castle. He would let him take his time so he could formulate his attack plan. Of course, there was always the chance that the man would lose his patience and hurry his pace, so that meant that the Emperor would have to make sure that his soldiers were on high alert.

###

Taizou was just done with this. True, at least he had Yuji and Robert to talk to, but unfortunately they were all in different cells ever since they got back from that expedition.

The brown-haired Japanese teen was constantly trying to find a way out of that place. Unfortunately for him, the only way out seemed to be an air duct that was far too small for him to go through. Then there were the guards, girls that didn't even seem to react to his advances. They were obviously brainwashed.

They would have to figure out a way out of that stupid place soon.

"Bored. Bored. Boredy. Bored. Can't they give us some board games or something?" Yuji complained. "Oh yeah, I said bored again. Get it, bored games?"

"You know we're losing our minds when we have to deal with bad puns," Robert commented. "I at least wish I had a book to read or something."

Taizou liked that idea. Maybe they could even use that against their enemies. So, he got up and headed toward the bars of the cell he was in and called out to one of the guards, a brown-skinned girl with a Lalamon for a partner. "Hey, you? Does the Digimon Emperor have a library or something?"

"I don't know," the girl replied after a pause.

"Right, right… So, maybe you could ask around and, if it's alright with Symanski, you could take me there," Taizou suggested.

"I will talk to him," the girl replied before heading off, leaving only Lalamon behind to keep track of the trio.

"Okay, so I've been asking myself the same question: why the heck does the Emperor just brainwash us like he did to the girls?" Yuji asked, really confused. Robert just shrugged.

"Maybe he only like's girls," the black-haired teen replied.

"A tyrannical overlord with his own personal army of hot, female bodyguards," Taizou remarked. "Sounds good to me, though wouldn't he be worried that we'd be able to flirt with one of them and turn her over to our side?"

"He brainwashed them to be completely loyal to him," Robert replied.

"So, Robbie, how come you never talk about yourself?" Yuji asked Robert from his cell on the other side of the hall.

"Don't call me Robbie. As for your question: Not much to tell. The mom's in jail. I never knew my pop. Oh, and I live in New York." The bulky teen chuckled. "It was a godsend when I got my digivice. It was nice to meet some decent people for a change." Robert smiled. "Plus, I didn't have many friends that were girls before coming here." Then his face shifted to a frown. "Then everything went downhill when the Emperor came. We tried to stop him but failed."

"Bummer, man," Yuji replied, frowning as well.

It was about then that Angela came back in with handcuffs. "You will come with me," she told Taizou sternly as she opened up the holding cell. The buzz-haired teen complied, holding out his hands and letting her cuff him. She led him out of the dungeon and through the castle. It was nice for him to see what that place looked like since he hadn't seen much of it. From what he saw out the windows were that they were currently in a castle on top of a mountain overlooking a vast valley.

His mere glance made him want to escape more than anything.

###

"So, what kind of books do you like?" Emperor Symanski inquired of Taizou as soon as he walked into the room, amazed at the sight of the vast library. The Emperor was wearing bright orange today. "Impressive, isn't it?"

"How did you…?" Taizou's voice trailed off but the Emperor answered for him.

"Digital Gold. It looks just like the real thing and I was able to sell some. Using that money, I raided a few bookstores." The teen chuckled a bit.

"So, what's with the bright colors?" the Japanese teen inquired of his enemy's outfit.

"Oh, I've been reading the 'Evil Overlord List' and this is what it suggested. It throws my adversaries off." The Emperor smiled before inviting the brown-haired teen to check out his selection of books. "Come on, don't be shy."

The teen glanced through them. "Any good sci-fi?"  
David chuckled. "You're a sci-fi person, I see. Let's see... what do you prefer? Space opera? Modern day sci-fi? Trade paperback based on your favorite franchise?" The man seemed somewhat enthusiastic to have someone that was more than a prisoner. Immediately, he grabbed a dark-colored book and handed it to his hostage. "Here, this should keep you busy for a few hours at least."

Taizou examined the front. "Jurassic Park? This is a movie, right?" the brown-haired teen inquired, eliciting a nod from the Emperor.

"Yes, it is. But the book's quite a bit different from the movie. You see, Hammond isn't quite as kind here as in the movie. Oh, and Ian Malcolm dies at the end only to come back in the sequel without explanation." The man chuckled a bit. "Now, the sequel is almost completely different from the movie made from it."

Taizou nodded a bit before sitting down and attempting to read the book despite his hand-cuffs. The Emperor noticed them.

"Angela, feel free to take off the cuffs," he ordered the Latina who promptly walked over and unlocked them before pulling them off.

"You're taking these off?" the brown-haired boy questioned, surprised.

"Oh, yes, think of it as a privilege granted due to good behavior," the American replied. "I also had Sorcerymon upload massive amounts of vocabulary into your mind so you can read that without the help of a dictionary. I know your English skills aren't bad, but I figured that you'd want to enjoy what you're reading."

Taizou didn't know what to think of someone poking through his mind like that, but he simply accepted it and moved on, figuring he had better comply. He then realized that gaining the trust of the Emperor might be his key to getting him and the others out of here.

And he also thought of how willing the Emperor was to do this, realizing that the despot was probably lonely, another trait to take advantage of.

###

It was the end of Ed's shift at the campsite when Abby came to relieve him. "Time for you to go to bed," the girl told him playfully.

The black-haired teen smiled at her. He was sitting against the foot of the control spire that the group set camp around.

"Can it wait a few minutes?" he asked.

"I suppose," the girl responded, sitting next to him. After a few seconds of silence, she spoke. "I can't believe we're here."

"Neither can I," the heavy boy replied, taking everything in.

"It feels like… I don't know. Some sort of daydream I had," Abby said wistfully, "I remember when that episode of 02 aired about this place and how psyched up I was about seeing the 'Dark Undersea Master' and looking forward to how it turned out. Then I was disappointed when they didn't do anything with it."

Ed nodded. "Yeah, no kidding. That was one big plot-hole that needed filling."

The girl smiled at him. "That's why I write fanfic."

The heavy teen narrowed his eyes. "You write fanfic…" He didn't know what to think of that.

"What?" the girl asked, not knowing what to make of his lack of enthusiasm about the subject.

"Oh, it's nothing. What do you write?" he inquired, trying not to make it seem like he was all negative about it.

"Well, I write stuff pairing my favorite couples. For instance, I ship Tai and Sora and Kari and TK." The girl thought about a few other things. "Oh, and I like to pair Henry/Rika and Koji/Zoe as well."

"Didn't Sora get together with Matt?" he asked.

"Yeah, but I like to pretend that doesn't happen, like the Chakotay/Seven pairing on 'Star Trek: Voyager'," she explained. "I prefer Janeway/Chakotay instead."

"Oh, okay. So, who are Koji and Zoe?" the black-haired teen inquired before yawning, covering his mouth in the process.

"Well, Koji's a character from Digimon Frontier with long, black hair who I think is super-hot and Zoe's the only girl in the group," the brunette explained cheerfully. "Basically, I like pairing the two of them up such as in my fanfic. Of course, the Dub isn't out yet for another few months, but I still think they're the perfect match." She went on and gave a lengthy description of her story and didn't realize Ed had fallen asleep until his head had fallen onto her shoulder.

_Wait, what? _She thought, not saying it out loud so as not to wake the heavy teen that was sitting next to her. At least that meant that she could concentrate on keeping watch.

Though, most of that time was spent thinking about the boy next to her. She had only known him a couple of days and yet she was already good friends with him. She was really happy about that and looked forward to working with him even more in the future. At the same time, she was worried she may have hurt their relationship by rambling on like she did. The boy didn't like fanfic that much and she wondered why. Maybe he accidentally came across some really bad fanfic, which it seemed most of it was.

Maybe she'd ask him sometime.

She gently pulled the sleeping boy's head off her shoulder and put it on her lap, not thinking of what that may have entailed. All she wanted was for him to be comfortable and he would certainly get a kink in his neck if he stayed in the position that he was in for very long.

For the first time since the Digimon Emperor revealed himself as her brother and took away four of her friends, she felt truly happy.

###

Everyone woke up at about eight when their alarms rang. Ed got up off of Abby's lap, not realizing where he was until after about ten seconds. "I was on your lap?"

"You _were _on my shoulder, but I figured you'd be more comfortable on my lap so I moved you. Sorry about my rambling, by the way," the girl apologized. "I tend to do that sometimes."

"Oh, okay," the black-haired teen replied, getting up.

"So, let's eat breakfast and then leave! How about it, guys?" Tadashi called out to the rest of the team.

"Man, I so want a shower right now," Miki commented, not liking her current level of cleanliness even as she bit into a cliff bar. "And who chose this food?"

"Well, we need it all to last for as long as we're here in the Dark World," Ayaka told the dark-haired girl.

"Yeah, but I want more than just crappy chocolate bars," Miki responded, biting into it and not liking it.

"At least the Digimon seem to like it," the blonde said, gesturing toward Syakomon and Salamon who were both eating the bars like crazy.

"Still… meh," the dark-haired girl replied.

"And we only have enough food to last the next couple of days at most," Tadashi remarked.

"Yeah, these'll all be gone by tomorrow afternoon," Gunter stated before exclaiming enthusiastically. "But, hey! At least we still have toilet paper!"

"Yeah, at least," Miki responded, not impressed and lying back in the grass.

"Still, we might all need showers soon," Ed said as he bit into a banana.

"Why did Taizou have to get captured?" Miki complained. "Why couldn't someone like Ed have gotten captured instead?"

Ed glared at her. "Um, excuse me, I'm right here."

"Yeah, that wasn't very nice," Abby told the dark-haired girl point blank.

The Japanese girl realized what she did wrong. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" Miki exclaimed.

Ed smiled slightly, despite having a bit of anger in his eyes. "Just… Learn from your mistakes, please."

###

It was a few minutes later when they started moving again. Unfortunately, the field seemed to continue to take forever and the lack of digivolution didn't help any. Eventually, however, they spotted mountains in the distance. Still, it wasn't until about 2:30 PM that they reached the foot of the giant peaks, all dotted with numerous control spires.

"What's with all these control spires?" Syakomon asked, frightened by the fact that there were still so many around.

"Yeah, I know, right?" Coronamon replied. "It's not like there are many digimon other than us to deal with right? This place is practically deserted!"

"We don't know that," Ayaka objected. "For all we know we just haven't come across anything yet."

"She's right," Abby confirmed. "I don't know what it is, but I feel like there's something on the other side of these mountains calling for me."

Ed looked at her in shock. "Okay, that's more than a bit creepy."

Then Gunter saw something out of the corner of his eye. "Look!" he shouted, pointing to a rock formation along the mountain path they were on.

"What is it? I don't see anything," Miki inquired, narrowing her eyes at the formation.

"I saw something move," the large German explained. "I swear."

"Oh, great, so now we're losing our minds," Coronamon commented.

"Let's just keep moving," Tadashi told the group, feeling a bit uneasy himself. Now the Control Spires were no longer in their path. Up until then the large group went from Spire to Spire in case they ran into anything. Now, though, they were about fifty feet from the spires and it only seemed to increase with the way the path was winding. At least the view wasn't so bad with all the conifers along their path, though with how dreary it was, there still wasn't much to look at.

The group continued on until Ed stopped. "Guys, I saw something move too." The group looked around to see what it was but couldn't spot anything.

"What was it?" Tadashi asked, concerned.

"I don't know. It popped up from a crevice. I can't see it now." The dark-haired teen's eyes narrowed. "I think we're being followed."

"Okay, I'll admit that this place is a little creepy but don't you think you're overreacting?" Miki questioned.

"No, we're in the middle of a foreign world and the nearest Control Spire that we can destroy is about a half-mile away from us," Ayaka told the girl.

"Let's just keep on moving, okay?" Tadashi told the group, continuing on ahead. He was going to need a back-up plan in case they were too far from a Spire to destroy it with rookies. He glanced over to Ayaka and Salamon and thought about it.

"Hey, does anybody have a Digi-egg of Light card?" he requested from the group.

Ayaka pulled the card out of her deck. "I figured I might need this."

"Yeah, but your partner doesn't digivolve into Gatomon so how can you use it?" Abby asked the blonde.

"I don't know if I can, yet, but we'll see if we need it," the blonde responded.

Abby nodded, hoping they wouldn't.

The group hurried along, holding their partner so that in case the digimon needed to fight. They didn't know what was starting to pursue them, but they realized that if there was something following them, it was more than likely hostile.

Eventually, after about five o'clock, they reached the edge of the mountain range, not knowing exactly how many miles they traveled. After that it was a long trek through yet-another field but at least they could travel closer to the spires. However, Gunter started to notice something. "They're closer together here."

"What do you mean?" Tadashi asked, watching the German examine the area with his digivice.

"It means that their anti-digivolution fields overlap and so we'll have to destroy two, possibly four, Control Spires before we can digivolve!" the brown-haired teen exclaimed in a panic.

"Oh, no, that's not good!" Keramon shouted dramatically.

"We're getting closer to the darkness," Abby commented, feeling the dread emanating from the distance.

"I hope that your armor-digivolution works when we need it, Ayaka," Tadashi told the blonde.

"I hope it does too," she responded.

They continued on until the grass turned to sand. Then they found themselves at the edge of a cliff. That was when they heard a buzzing in the distance, coming from behind.

Coronamon looked in the distance, spotting the digimon that was headed straight for them. It had golden armor all over its insectoid body, large hands with blue cannons on the fingertips and golden, beetle-like horns on its helmeted head. "I see it!"

Tadashi pulled out his digivice. "MetallifeKuwagamon, Ultimate Level, Virus Attribute. Attacks: Homing Laser and Emit Blade." The blond looked on in fright. "Ayaka, pull off your plan, now!"

The blonde girl slid her digi-egg card through her D-Arc. "Digi-Modify, Armor Digivolution Activate!"

**ARMOR DIGIVOLUTION_**

"Salamon armor digivolve to… Nefertimon!" The rest of the group heaved a sigh of relief as the digimon soared into the sky as quickly as possible. She flew toward the nearest control spire, destroying it. Unfortunately, she realized that the enemy digimon had noticed her and so did her partner.

Ayaka pulled out a second card. "Digi-modify, Speed Activate!"

Time seemed to slow down for the armor digimon as she sped up, soaring toward the second control spire. "Rosetta Stone!" the Egyptian digimon yelled out, causing it to crumble. _Two down, two to go… _she thought, flying as fast as she possibly could toward the third one in the little square. She noticed that MetallifeKuwagamon had also sped up, so she needed to make this quick. She realized that she needed to destroy these two spires from a long distance.

The third spire was jutting out of the middle of the ocean. Trying to save as much time as possible, Nefertimon fired her attack from several hundred feet away. "Beam of Isis!" she yelled out, firing a laser from her headdress and destroying the third control spire instantly. All she had was the fourth. She hoped that she could make it before MetallifeKuwagamon caught up with her. The massive insect was definitely gaining on her and was about ten feet away when the winged cat shot her last attack.

"Beam of Isis!" Nefertimon took a deep breath when the last control spire crumbled over the edge of a cliff before turning towards the others to join them. Hopefully one of them would digivolve and fight against MetallifeKuwagamon before he caught up with her.

"Now what? You think one of you can go Ultimate?" Tadashi asked the rest of the group back at the edge of the cliff. Gunter moved forward as he pulled his digivice out of the pocket.

"Sure, haven't you reached that level already?" the German teen asked the blond.

"Yeah, but I haven't been able to do it again, yet," he responded.

"Watch and learn, boy!" the brown-haired teen shouted, holding out his digivice and shouting the phrase. "Super Digivolution Activate!"

**SUPER DIGIVOLUTION_**

"Keramon digivolve to… Infermon!" the digimon yelled, turning into the massive, bug-like computer virus that he was. Tadashi felt a bit embarrassed at the sight. _Wait, you mean it was that simple?_

"Now, Infermon, take this guy out!" Gunter exclaimed, his expression a mad one.

"Oh yeah! I sure will!" Infermon responded, leaping forward at MetalLifeKuwagamon and getting between it and Nefertimon.

###

When Taizou was done with his books, he expected to be led back to his cell. Instead, he was brought by Angela to a dining room to eat with the Emperor, something he definitely hadn't expected. The room was quite ornate with a crystal chandelier and gold-painted walls as well as a table made of solid oak, or so it seemed. When the brown-haired teen got seated, the Emperor snapped his fingers and a Veggiemon walked in with two full plates of pizza.

"Bon appetite," the Emperor stated with a smile. Taizou didn't know what to think of getting fed pizza. For all he knew, it was poisoned with some sort of mind-control drug. Still, he _was _hungry, so he reached out and grabbed a slice, biting into it.

"Tastes good," Taizou complemented.

"Yeah, I thought you'd like it. It's something different from all that prison food, after all," the Emperor commented in reply.

"You're right, it is. However, I kind of prefer sushi," the buzz-haired teen responded, causing a dark expression to cross the emperor's face. "Still, thank you."

"Not a problem. So, what would you think of working for me?" Damien inquired. "You can get your partner back without a ring."

"No, I'd rather not," Taizou responded. _It would betray my friends and everything I believe in._

"Suit yourself. Still, you can finish your food," the Emperor told him. "My offer still stands, though."

"And the answer's still no," Taizou replied with a smile.

After eating, he was escorted back to the cell. Unfortunately, he couldn't bring anything back with him to give to the others. And besides, would they want pizza that was in his pants?

When he got back to the cell, Robert spoke to him. "So, did he give you pizza?" the big Italian-American digidestined inquired.

"Yeah. Did he give you some one time?" Taizou replied.

"Oh, yeah, but I refused it saying that since it wasn't from New York it wasn't worth my time," Robert stated before grinning widely. "You should have seen the look on his face."

"Oh, man, I would _love _pizza right about now!" Yuji exclaimed.

Taizou smiled. He was glad he didn't give in.

###

The figure continued to wait. After twenty-four hours, he would start destroying spires. That would hopefully bring the Digimon Emperor's wrath upon him.

Then he would have a chance to turn the key and his plans for domination of all worlds would begin.

He chuckled madly at the thought. It would work. His plans would always work from here on out even if they didn't in the past. Well, the past from his point of view. Still, he was pragmatic and tried to learn from his mistakes.

The man adjusted his glasses as he settled down with his partner at the base of a control spire, eating a piece of fruit while he did so.

###

A/N: Welcome to the Dark Ocean. It's definitely not a nice place to be, don't you think. Wait till they reach Dagomon's city…

This chapter was a bit shorter than usual and I even expanded the scene with Nefertimon destroying Control Spires. For those that want to see Jeri and the others: at least she will appear in the next chapter. See you then.


	22. Broken Bonds

Chapter 22: Broken Bonds

###

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, just the fifty million OCs in this fic now. Wow, that was unexpected. Come to think of it, I wasn't planning on having that many in this fic.

###

Jeri was deeply concerned about Tadashi. For one thing, he seemed to be becoming more and more withdrawn, especially since his brother gained a partner and both Ayaka and Yuji digivolved their partners to Ultimate. The blond was starting to become more and more negative as time went on, something that deeply distressed her.

Then he didn't show up at school one day, so she decided to visit the blond. Making her way to his apartment, she knocked on the door. She hoped that everything was alright, but had a feeling it wasn't. Tadashi wasn't the one who opened the door, but rather his brother. The larger blond smiled at her.

"Hey, Jeri, how's it going?" he asked.

"I'm doing well. How about you, Kurita?" the brunette inquired, smiling back.

The large blond nodded. "I'm doing pretty good. Come on in," he invited, holding the door for the girl. "Tadashi's in his room. He wasn't feeling well today."

She hoped that simply meant that he was sick instead of depressed. She made her way into the room where the blond boy was lying in bed in his pajamas, playing a game on his Game Boy Advance.

"Hey, Tadashi, how are you feeling?" the brunette asked him and he glanced up from his game.

"I'm fine," he responded grumpily. "What are you doing here?"

Jeri was somewhat taken aback by that question, but decided to smile anyway. "I'm here to see you since you weren't at school today." Then she decided to shift attention to the game he was playing. "What game is that?"

"Advance Wars," Tadashi replied, not exactly happy to have the girl checking up on him. The brunette didn't know anything about the game he was playing except that it was some sort of strategy game and decided that he wasn't in the mood for visitors so she said her good-byes.

"I hope you get to feeling better," she told him. The blond looked up from his game and gave her a somewhat impassive look before she walked out the door.

"How's he doing?" Kurita inquired from the opposite end of the living room, concerned for his brother.

"Is he still grumpy?" Coronamon inquired, sitting at the kitchen table.

Jeri nodded sadly. "I don't know what's with him."

"He wasn't very nice to me, earlier," Liollmon commented from on the couch. "Come to think of it, he's not very nice to me that much period."

"Yeah, I really wish I knew what was going on, but I don't so… I don't know what to do," Kurita commented.

Jeri looked at the now-closed door to her blond friend's bedroom. She wished there was a way to cheer him up, but she couldn't think of any. _Come on, what would Takato have done for you, Jeri?_ She thought about the brown-haired boy in sadness, wishing he would come home again. She also missed Rika and Henry as well as Kazu, Kenta and Ryo. She wondered where they were and if they were alright.

"So, how are _you_ doing?" the brunette asked Kurita, sitting on the couch next to Liollmon.

"Alright," the large blond responded. "School's going great and everything. I'm definitely ready for graduation but that's still a few months away. Oh, and taming's going great with Liollmon."

"Yeah, we kicked the butt of a DinoHumon yesterday," Liollmon replied, curling up next to Jeri like the cat that he was. The girl scratched him behind the ears and smiled.

"You're so cute, Liollmon," the brunette told him.

"Aw, thanks!" the lion cub told her in gratitude.

Jeri then turned her attention back to Kurita. "Have you seen Keith Jackson lately? He wasn't there at Hypnos the last few times I went."

The large blond shrugged. "You know, I haven't seen him at all the last couple days. Rinchei and I went to Hypnos yesterday to train with him but he wasn't there. Same with the day before." The blond scratched his head. "Come to think of it, yesterday Yamaki gave me a strange look when I asked him about him."

"I hope he's alright," Jeri told him, concerned for the mysterious American that managed to teach her some English.

"I'm sure he is," Kurita said before muttering something under his breath. "Maybe Antonio knows something."

"Huh?" the girl asked.

"Well, Keith's friends with this professor from Chile named Antonio Guevara, so maybe that guy knows where he is. Let's see, what time would it be over there?" The blond scratched his head, trying to calculate the time difference.

"Well, it's safe to assume that it's on the other side of the world, so maybe there's about twelve hours difference," the girl suggested.

"That sounds about right… maybe. Still, it's about four here so that means it's probably a bit too early to go bug him," the large blond remarked.

"Can't you try contacting Keith? He's got a digivice, right?" the girl questioned.

"Maybe… I think he might be in stealth mode right now," Kurita knew it was all pretty suspicious and he wondered what was happening. So, he thought about his plan. _Let's see, Antonio's a university professor, so what time _does _he get up? Probably around five-thirty or so… _

"Okay, how about we go week Antonio in about an hour. You don't have anything pressing to do, right?" the blond asked Jeri.

"Actually, I have to go help my father out at the tavern… Oh, great, I'm late!" the girl panicked a little bit. "Well, I have to go, so see you later."

Kurita nodded. "Alright, see you around," he told her with a smile as she hurried out the door. He was still going to visit Antonio, but without her. Hopefully the time zone difference didn't screw things up.

He didn't realize that Tadashi was on the other side of his door, glaring at him through the crack for considering a visit to the curly-haired Chilean man.

###

"Homing Laser!" MetallifeKuwagamon shot a blue beam from the gun on his hand and Infermon attempted to dodge. Unfortunately, the giant bug didn't expect the attack to suddenly alter its trajectory and hit him head on.

"Infermon!" his brown-haired partner yelled out in shock.

"Don't worry, Gunter, it's only a flesh wound," the virus remarked, getting an angry look from his partner.

"Maybe we should help," Miki suggested before Tadashi stopped her with a gesture.

"It's his time to shine. I think we should only interfere if he's about to lose," the blond told her.

None of the others knew what to think of that one, though Ed figured it out after a few seconds. "We need to conserve our Digimons' strength," he concluded, getting a smile from Tadashi. Maybe that meant that they were on the right track. He only hoped that the blond could handle the truth when the time came.

Abby felt a shiver run through her body and she glanced over the ocean. She didn't like that feeling. In fact, she felt that the ocean was calling out for her and that they needed to get this over with before the true enemy came and got them. After glancing at the ocean, she turned to Gunter and Infermon. "Go get them!"

Gunter definitely had a few tricks up his sleeve, though he knew the limitations of the programs he designed for the upgraded digivice. "Activate program: ! Increase defense to the max!" he shouted out, holding his digivice. Since he didn't have any modify cards with him, it was a good substitute.

Unfortunately, as he figured out, Infermon was stuck, not moving. The insect was focusing all his energy on defense which meant that attacking was out of the question.

"Oh, please, this is definitely not the time to be experimenting!" Miki scolded him and he gave her a glare, even though he knew she was right. Still, she's ticked him off too many times.

"Come on…" Gunter then thought about what he needed to do just as his partner was getting hit by projectiles, which, despite causing only minimal damage, still hurt. And then there was the fact that this enemy digimon could even decide that it was pointless attacking Infermon and focus on the Tamers and their un-digivolved partners. He needed to think of something.

Thankfully he had programmed the various modification files with some functions that would help him. "Activate Program: ! Decrease defense to ten percent above normal. ! Increase Attack to 20 % above normal. ! Speed to 30% above normal!" The digivice shot a burst of light at Infermon, who moved quickly. However, the Tamer knew that there was a good possibility that his partner would lose energy quickly, something which he hadn't solved quite yet, so he turned to the others. "Any chance somebody has a Stamina Seed card?" he requested.

Ayaka immediately pulled out her deck of cards and looked through it, finding the card about midway through the deck. She immediately handed it to the tall German. "Here you go," she responded with a bit of a shy smile.

"Thank you very much!" Gunter exclaimed enthusiastically. He wouldn't use the card quite yet, but he waited until it was needed.

"Spider Shooter!" Infermon yelled out, spraying a few shots of red energy at MetallifeKuwagamon, who tried shielding himself from the attack but damaged the armor on his arms and chest anyway, revealing the obsidian material beneath.

"He's a control spire digimon," Abby realized.

"Wait, you mean there are actually digimon made from Control Spires?" Miki questioned, surprised and kind of creeped out.

"A good chunk of Adventure 02 involved them fighting digimon that were made from them, created by an evil digimon named Arukenimon," Ayaka explained.

"Funny, that arc was pretty good until the Destiny Stones showed up," Abby commented. "Personally, I'd replace them with something else, like crest fragments or something. Or even crests for the new Digidestined." The girl now had a plot bunny running through her head but no way to write it down, causing her to become somewhat anxious.

Ed wondered what was wrong. "What's going on?"

"Oh, I have something I so need to write down," the brunette responded and Ed pulled out his drawing pad in reply. The girl glanced at the drawings inside, instantly forgetting her ideas. "Wow, these are pretty good!"

"Network Grenade!" Infermon yelled out, shooting himself at the energy after changing to a cocoon form. The attack hit MetallifeKuwagamon head-on, damaging him even further.

Unfortunately, that was about the time that the giant virus ran out of energy. "Digi-Modify!" His partner exclaimed in an over-the-top manner. "Stamina Seed Activate!"

The card rejuvenated the living computer virus just in time for MetallifeKuwagamon to prepare another attack for Infermon. The gold-armored insect created a blade for Infermon. "Emit Blade!"

As the insect headed straight for him, Infermon prepared an attack of his own. "Spider Shooter!" The attacks hit the two digimon at about the same time. However, while MetallifeKuwagamon only caused minimal damage to Infermon, the reverse wasn't true. Instead, the spider-shooter attack bored a hole straight through MetallifeKuwagamon's torso, deleting him. The giant computer virus then degenerated to an exhausted Keramon, who was caught by Gunter as he fell.

"Good job, Keramon!" the brown-haired German told him, smiling widely. "You did excellent, my friend!"

"Thanks…" The digimon said before dozing off.

The rest of the team smiled except for Abby, who turned and faced the ocean with dread. The others didn't notice this except for Ed and Cutemon, who looked worriedly at the brunette. Her partner was the one that spoke. "What's wrong, kyu?"

"They're coming," the girl responded. She wouldn't let this get to her. She would be strong. She reminded herself of her friends, even as she noticed a multitude of dark figures walking out of the water onto the beach.

They were there for her. And they wouldn't stop for nothing. The Deep Ones were on their way, beckoned by their god to take the child of light.

###

When Kurita set the teleportation program on his digivice, a gift given to him by Mr. Immortal himself, he set it to land him right outside the professor's house. The air was a little cool due to it being winter in Chile at the moment, but it seemed relatively mild compared to wintertime in some places. Still, the heavy blond man didn't take any chances.

"So, are you sure he'll be awake?" Liollmon asked, not quite liking the situation they were in. The lion actually didn't like unfamiliar situations, so he was starting to feel a bit nervous.

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure that he's either up or about to get up," Kurita replied. "Plus, he seemed pretty nice last time despite being woken up in the middle of the night."

"Yeah, but last time we had Mr. Immortal with us. It might not be the same this time," the digimon warned.

Because of his digimon's worries, Kurita was starting to feel a little worried himself. Maybe he should have come at a different time like early in the morning in Japan. As it was, he was most likely missing dinner, something he didn't do often. Still, he figured he'd at least try. He knocked a second time and he heard some ruffling inside the small house that the professor shared with his partner digimon. The blond wondered what it was that prevented the man from at least getting a girlfriend.

Finally, the door opened and a familiar man in a blue bathrobe appeared on the other side. "Oh, hey, you're Kurita, right? Come on in!" Antonio exclaimed, feeling hospitable despite it being four in the morning. The Japanese teen was an hour off and he didn't realize it. Still, the heavy Chilean man was already up and moving, so he didn't seem to mind, not that he minded when they were there a few days earlier.

Kurita entered into the house as Antonio shut the front door. "So, how's it going?" the thirty-seven year-old asked, smiling.

"Good. I just thought I'd pop by," the blond responded. "You?"

"Oh, I'm just early, working on an upgrade for the D-Arc," Antonio replied. "I'm trying to translate a program from Al's digivice so that it's compatible with mine, but it turns out I'll have to expand the API a little bit. More like a lot, but whatever." The shorter man chuckled a bit. "Never a dull moment in the world of the programmer."

"Yeah? And what do you need to do?" Kurita inquired, curious.

"Well, I have to access the assembly code in various strange and unusual ways," the man replied, before smiling enthusiastically. "So, make yourself at home! I still need to get dressed, so you can relax on the couch, just don't sit on Veemon. That's his usual napping place. You want anything? Coffee? Tea?"

"Uh, I'm fine at the moment. I'm probably going to eat dinner as soon as I get back to the house," the tall blond replied, not liking that he wasn't taking up the Chilean man on the offer.

"Oh, don't worry about it." The man then headed for the back of the house and Kurita waited. After only a couple minutes, the shorter Chilean man walked out of his room, wearing dress slacks and a tucked-in, sky blue shirt without a tie or belt. Also, his feet were noticeably bare. "So, what _really _brings you all this way? You couldn't have travelled thousands of miles for nothing."

Kurita thought up his words carefully. "Well, Jeri was asking about Mr. Immortal and I haven't seen him in a few days…"  
"Ah, I figured it was something like that." One thing Kurita noticed about Antonio was that he was extremely expressive in his gestures. It must have come with the culture since Spaniards and Italians were known to be emotional, expressive people. The man's face turned into a bit of a scowl, though as he said his next statement. "You mean that he didn't contact you?"

Kurita shook his head. "I haven't heard from him in a couple days."

Antonio nodded in understanding. "Well, he got in trouble with Yamaki for giving you your partner digimon. It wasn't against the law, but I guess he sent a SWAT team, or whatever the Japanese equivalent is, after him anyway."

"Maybe it's against Hypnos policy?" Kurita suggested, shocked by the news.

"I asked my friend Gorou Mizuno and he told me that there wasn't a policy against giving friends digimon," the shorter Chilean replied. Kurita grimaced a little bit. Yamaki was definitely a good guy but there were definitely times when he could get a little too authoritarian or extreme. That brought to mind the Juggernaut incident that killed numerous digimon residing in the real world while simultaneously allowing the Devas to get through. The blond wondered how any of the Tamers could have trusted him after that.

"So, where is he now?" Kurita inquired. Antonio gave him a warm smile.

"Currently, he's on his own private island at a place called the Brigade Compound. Apparently in his future, this organization of Tamers called the Tamers' Brigade existed and he's trying to give it a jump start." The man's expression went neutral and he shrugged while tilting his head. "I'm not sure if it's a good idea, but at least he's getting a few homeless kids off the street. I guess it's fine as long as they don't all go to the Digital World with us."

Kurita looked forward to the trip, even though it wasn't scheduled for another three weeks. The blond handed his new friend his digivice and the man took it before typing in coordinates for the island that Mr. Immortal was on. Then the heavy Chilean man handed it back. "Here you go. All set."

The blond Japanese man smiled before giving a polite bow. "Thank you very much."

"Hey, it's my pleasure. Stop by any time if you need any advice," Antonio responded, smiling.

###

The malignant digital life forms were inching toward the top of the cliff, climbing upon each rock and aiming for the brunette. Or at least that was what it seemed at first. The team decided to take preemptive action against these enemies in hopes that they could defeat them. The only problem was that there seemed to be far too many of them to defeat in one strike and they all had champion-level strength.

So they had to digivolve. "Super Digivolution Activate!" Tadashi, Ayaka and Miki all shouted.

"Coronamon digivolve to… Flaremon!"

"Syakomon digivolve to… Calamarimon!"  
"Salamon digivolve to… Sanzomon!"

The three Ultimates then made quick work of as many of the specters as possible. Flaremon was busy unleashing numerous fire attacks while Calamarimon was spurting out massive amounts of ink. In the meantime, the three other Tamers did their best to help, destroying as many of the creatures as they possibly could.

"Digivolution Activate!" Ed yelled out. Abby didn't need to shout the phrase since her partner could digivolve without it.

"Prokyomon digivolve to… Guepardomon!"

"Cutemon digivolve to… Rabbitmon!"

The massive amount of enemy creatures didn't stand a chance against the three Ultimates and two Champions and before they knew it, there was only one left that they kept alive for information.

"Okay, what are you and why did you come after us?" Tadashi asked the enemy creature that was in his partner's arms. Flaremon was about ready to delete the abomination if it did anything remotely out of line.

"We are the Deep Ones and we serve our god, the Dark Undersea Master, Dagomon," the Deep One explained. "We are after the bearer of the purified crest that threatens our master's existence."

"Purified crest? What do you mean?" Ed inquired. "Are you talking about the Crest of Light?"

"No, I was talking about another, more dangerous crest, one whose power is completely contrary to our master's nature," the ugly fish-creature said. "The master doesn't want it activated and wants you destroyed, Eduardo Guevara!"

With that warning given, the Deep One dissipated into data. The group stared at it for a few seconds before their eyes moved towards Ed, who was standing there in disbelief.

"Dagomon's after you?" Abby asked in surprise. "And here I thought he would be after me."

"I wonder what crest you have," Ayaka told him.

"Probably something like Miracles or Hope," Gunter guessed.

"I've got hope!" Tadashi objected. "And, Ed, I thought your last name was Diaz." The blond narrowed his eyes in a glare at the black-haired boy.

"It is," Ed replied. _Legally until my dad can actually change it._

"Then why did that digimon call you Guevara? You're not related to Antonio, are you?" the Japanese boy questioned. Ed decided to not answer it directly.

"Guevara is actually a somewhat common last name that derives from the name of a town in the Basque country of northern Spain. Plus, there's that Argentine revolutionary who helped take over Cuba, Che Guevara. And then there's how Antonio is a really common first name in Spanish since it's the name of a Catholic saint." Ed hoped that explained everything away.

"Plus, Argentina's right next to Uruguay where his mother's from," Abby added. Ed had to stop himself from chuckling since he realized that his dad would probably disapprove of any insinuations that they were related to the famous revolutionary. Antonio actually felt that the man was absolutely nuts.

Tadashi realized that they were skirting the issue. "You're related. Actually, you're his son," the blond concluded, angry.

Ed knew that there was no way of getting around this issue. He didn't like that he had been outed to the blond since he had a strong dislike of his father. "What of it?" the black-haired teen asked, frowning.

"You lied to me!" Tadashi shouted.

"You complained about him from the start and you hate him for no real reason! And I didn't lie to you once; I just didn't tell you who my father was!" Ed yelled back, losing his emotional control.

"No real reason?" the blond snapped back. "Oh, please, he wouldn't let you have a partner! And he's a stinking adult with a digimon partner! Only kids are supposed to get digimon!"

Ed glared at the blond. "And who are you to say that?" he replied icily, turning away.

The rest of the group, digimon included, stared in shock as the two separated, each sitting down on opposite ends of the cliff. As it was, it was getting late and they needed to set up camp.

It was going to be a long night.

###

Kurita and Liollmon arrived at the Brigade Compound at about 6AM in that time zone, about 8PM JST. The large man walked up to the entrance of the building and knocked at the door, meanwhile taking in the scenery. The compound was located on an island with a small mountain in the middle and plenty of greenery all around. Plus, the sight of the sunrise made everything quite beautiful.

"Pretty big place this guy's got here," Liollmon commented.

"Sure is," Kurita replied in agreement.

The blond waited for a few minutes, chatting off and on with his partner. Unfortunately, nobody answered. There wasn't even a doorbell either, though that might have been partially because they were on a secluded island with nothing other than the waves and seagulls to give the place company.

After knocking three times, the blond decided to go inside, not knowing what to expect. The place was dark and seemingly deserted, though that might have been partially because it was six in the morning.

So, the blond continued walking through the place, glancing through the halls. It seemed to be separated into dorms as well as what were possibly classrooms and training areas. There was also a massive weight room with all sorts of equipment as well as a large cafeteria. Kurita wondered how on earth Mr. Immortal could afford all this.

Finally, he reached the room where the millennia-old blond was, busy reading. Mr. Immortal looked up with a smile. It had apparently been a couple days since he had shaved since there were definitely the beginnings of a beard on his face, a thick one at that. The man was also wearing a pair of blue goggles. "Hey, how's it going? You know, I _was_ going to call you eventually."

Kurita chuckled a bit. "Oh, okay, that's good. It's good to know that I wasn't going to be out of the loop forever." He looked down at what the Tamer of Forever was reading. "The Pillow Book?"

"Yeah, Old Japanese literature, said to be one of the first novels written," Mr. Immortal replied. "I've been trying to learn Japanese for several years, to be honest. One of the hardest I've had to learn."

"What would you say was the hardest?" Kurita questioned out of curiosity.

"Well, when I first got stranded, while I was in a prison cell I had to learn the local language. I'm not quite sure what it was called, though. I had to learn Sumerian a little while after that, which was interesting to say the least." The man shook his head. "I basically had to get little kids to name stuff for me. Took me awhile to learn the vocabulary and grammar needed to converse in it, though."

"I hear that the best way to learn a language is to be immersed in it. Is that true?" Kurita asked, getting a shake of the head from the Tamer of Forever.

"Not really. I've known people who put themselves in an environment like that and wound up with horrid grammar and pronunciation." The man chuckled a bit. "I'd say wait until you have a good handle on pronunciation and vocab before doing that."

The Japanese teen nodded before the American spoke again. "Aren't you the least curious about what this place is for?"

Kurita stopped in his tracks and gave a confused look. "What's it for?"

"Well, in the future that I came from, there was a peacekeeping organization called the Tamers' Brigade and, well, I decided to start it up a little early by recruiting all the homeless Tamers I can find." The man smiled. "Of course, I've been getting a lot of rejections from these kids. Apparently they don't want to get off the street as much as they say they do."

"Wait, so what is this Brigade for, anyway?" Liollmon asked, breaking the silence.

"It's supposed to be a supranational, politically-neutral organization that's meant to deal with relations between humans and Digimon and protect both worlds from whatever threats come their way." The man gave a pensive expression. "If you want, you can help out."

"Oh, yeah, that's fine. We're not bringing these guys with us to the digital world, though, are we?" Kurita asked in concern.

"Oh, no, they stay here unless somehow they were thrust into the digital world themselves," Mr. Immortal replied rapidly, hoping to get rid of any doubts the heavy man may have.

Unfortunately, Liollmon had a different reaction from relief. "Wait, you mean we won't be bringing them as back-up?"

"They're minors and, quite frankly, I concur with Tony, we shouldn't bring kids into the digital world with us. It's too dangerous." The man was adamant.

"I totally agree with you," Kurita replied.

"Wait, so what is it about this age thing that won't let you bring kids into the digital world?" Liollmon inquired.

"Would you send In-Training digimon to fight against Megas, even with help from other Megas?" Mr. Immortal asked, hoping to make a point.

"No, of course not! They'd be an easy target," the lion replied, finally getting it. "Oh!"

"So, ready?" Mr. Immortal inquired of Kurita.

"Sure thing," the blond Japanese teen replied.

###

Camp wasn't so fun after the argument between Tadashi and Eduardo. "I can't believe that idiot had the gall to not tell me that Antonio was his father!" the blond complained to Ayaka and Miki. The trio of Japanese Tamers was a little ways from the others, definitely out of listening distance.

"Oh, please, with how much you badmouth that guy, I'm surprised he admitted it tonight," the dark-haired girl commented. "Heck, I was surprised. Then again, they do look a lot alike."

"Here's the thing, Tadashi, the reason why Ed didn't tell you that Antonio was his father was because he didn't want to ruin the peace in our team," Ayaka told the blond, frowning.

"Yeah? Wait, did you know about this too?" the Japanese boy questioned angrily, pointing at the blonde girl.

"Yes, I did," Ayaka replied, her arms folded. "And think about it. Imagine if you met somebody who was badmouthing your brother. Would you tell him that you were related to him?"

Tadashi knew she had a point. "Probably not."

"But still, he should have told us earlier!" Coronamon exclaimed.

"You're not helping, kitty," Miki told the digimon with a glare.

"Oh, please, my partner's right and you know it!"

Ayaka didn't think so. Then again, neither did Miki, and that was saying something. Unfortunately, Tadashi continued to push his argument.

###

On the other side of the encampment, Ed, Abby and Gunter were hanging around along with their partners. The muscular German was busy scanning the water from the edge of the cliff while Abby and Ed were having a little chat.

"Ed, don't let what Tadashi said get to you, okay?" the brunette told the dark-haired boy, who was lying back on the rocky ground.

"I won't," Ed responded. After a brief pause, he spoke again. "I don't know why Tadashi doesn't like my dad. It's not like he actually met him."

Abby understood but she tried to think of things from the blond Japanese boy's point of view. "Well, maybe he feels threatened because your dad's a Tamer. I don't know for sure since I haven't been traveling with you guys that long, but maybe he's afraid that whatever authority he has in this team could be threatened if we came across your dad."

"I guess he is kind of the leader," Ed replied, talking about Tadashi. The truth was that he hadn't thought about it much, though the blond seemed to be the one giving orders most of the time.

"Plus, there aren't any adult Tamers on any of the anime. Well, at least none of the seasons that have aired," the brunette added. As it was only 2002, Savers hadn't aired yet in her world, so she was right.

"And besides, what would you think if someone was keeping something important from you, kyu?" Cutemon asked.

Ed knew that the pink rabbit had a point. Of course, it wasn't _that _important and Tadashi didn't actually encourage the black-haired teen to admit his secret to him.

Still, the teen realized that the most important thing that they had to have on the team was peace so they'd actually be able to work together when the time came. Ed was trying to think of a way to restore that peace as best as he could, though he realized that he would probably have to apologize despite it not actually being his fault.

The dark-haired teen got up and stretched. It was about then that Gunter was headed back to the duo. "So, anything new?"

Gunter gave him a worried look. The German was eerily calm; something that meant that something bad was going on. "Well, things aren't good. The water's got some sort of corrupting agent in it."

"No, it's not just not good, it's bad!" Keramon panicked.

"Corrupting agent?" Abby inquired, both confused and disturbed by the news.

"Well, from the looks of it, the water contains microbes that would turn Digimon into those… things we fought earlier," Gunter explained.

"So, that means that the water is how he builds his army. We should go tell the others!" Ed exclaimed, before getting up. He was about five feet from the duo before stopping and turning around, nervous. "Hey, Gunter, how about you go tell the others about your discovery?"

"I'll do that, but I want to go check out a nearby stream in case the water there isn't contaminated. That should prove my hypothesis that the source of the corrupting agent is in the same place as Dagomon." The German smiled widely at his partner and exclaimed. "Let's do this!"

"Yeah!" Keramon replied loudly, following his partner to the stream he was talking about.

###

Kurita returned home in the middle of the night, hoping that his parents didn't notice his absence. The large Japanese man glanced at himself in the mirror before walking out of his room.

Unfortunately, as soon as he walked out of the room, he had a SWAT team right on him, guns pointed at him. From out of the group, Yamaki moved forward.

"Hello, Kurita Nakabayashi," the man greeted a shocked Kurita.

"Uh, what is going on?" the heavy guy asked.

Yamaki explained. "Simple: you are working with someone wanted by Hypnos and you used his programs to visit him. Thanks to your brother informing us of your intent, we were able to keep track of your whereabouts and noticed you went to both Chile and an unnamed Caribbean island."

Kurita stood shocked as Yamaki explained further. "For having dealings with a suspected rogue Tamer, you are to be taken in for questioning," the skinny blond added. The heavy one decided that he might as well give himself up, though he had no way of contacting either Antonio or Mr. Immortal for help.

As he was handcuffed and taken away, he looked toward his brother's room to see the kid looking through the cracked-open door, smiling. That unnerved him.

###

The next day, Tadashi appeared at school, happier than he had been in a while. Before school started, he sat down at his desk and waited patiently, writing a little bit while he did so. When Jeri entered into the room, she noticed him.

"You seem pretty chipper today," the brunette commented with a smile, sitting in the desk next to his.

"Yeah, things are great," the blond replied, his eyes narrowing. "Just great."

Jeri didn't know what to think of his expression. "Why, what's going on? Did you beat that game yesterday?"

The blond shook his head. "No, I just found something to turn my brother into Hypnos for. It turns out that he knew where this Mr. Immortal clown was."

Jeri looked at him, shocked. "What?"

"Yeah, that means one less adult Tamer to deal with," the alternate version of Tadashi Nakabayashi commented excitedly. "Isn't that great?"

The brunette frowned and turned away. At the same time, she felt guilty for asking the blond's brother about how Keith Jackson was doing. She couldn't believe how her blond friend did that.

She sat there, disturbed by what had just happened. She wasn't sure what to say to the boy who she had a crush on. She was going to have to do something about it, so she decided she would let Keith Jackson know about it.

###


	23. Abominations

Chapter 23: Abominations

###

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon. Just the myriad of OCs therein (thankfully there aren't _quite _that many. For those that don't know: myriad means 10,000).

Also, a warning: this chapter gets a bit freaky in some spots, part of the reason why I upgraded the fic's rating to T. It won't go any higher.

And I apologize for taking so long to get this chapter out. Some parts were kind of tough to write. Hopefully the next one will take less time.

###

Dorbickmon knew his end was here. The forces of the triumvirate were quite literally at his doorstep and there was nothing he could do about it. _So much for being a great power in the digital world, _the Dragonlord thought, grimacing at the thought.

"Lord Dorbickmon! We can still escape!" came the shrill voice of his not-quite-so-loyal second-in-command, Darkdramon. The four-winged dragon had attempted to usurp the Dragonlord's throne a number of times, though he'd always been thwarted. Dorbickmon figured that the only reason he kept him around was because he was somewhat entertaining.

"No, our time is at its end," the red dragon stated, standing up. He was ready for whatever forces came through that door in the end. Dorbickmon clenched his fists. There were so many things he wanted to get done before the end but here he was. "You know, at times like this I hear Defendramon's voice in my head telling me that he told me so."

"Oh, Defendramon? I almost forgot about him," Darkdramon lied, shivering at the thought of the rival that he had killed. In compliance with the Dragonlord's no-loading rule, he didn't absorb his data but let the digimon get reborn again. Last he heard, it ended up joining a squad of Commandramon under a Sealsdramon, but he lost track of the former chancellor sometime after that. In some ways, the dragon regretted doing that, especially since he was outnumbered. Defendramon's Tachyon Laser would have been useful against these enemies.

After a few minutes, the door opened and three digimon came through. One of them was a humanoid raccoon with grey fur who was wearing a pair of goggles on its eyes, black armor all over its body and a jetpack. StrikeMapachemon.

The next was clearly a Mega. It had red armor across its body and a pair of large cannons on its back. Chaosdramon.

The third and last was a Royal Knight with black armor on his body: Gankoomon.

Looking at their odds, the two digimon realized that their lives were at an end with a stronger-than-average Ultimate, a Royal Knight and a Tier II Mega as their enemies, it wasn't even a fair fight.

For the first time in his life, Dorbickmon prayed to Yggdrasil in hopes that the god-like being would give him some measure of forgiveness.

###

They got up at dawn, ready to face whatever dark forces came their way. After a quick bathroom break and breakfast, they gathered all their things and headed toward the shore and away from the cliff, an uneasy silence filling the air.

Once they reached the shore, Gunter informed the team of his discovery the night before. "Okay, guys, it turns out that the water will turn us into those fish thingies that attacked us yesterday," the brown-haired teen stated.

"Okay, Miki, you think you can protect us with Ranamon's powers?" Tadashi asked the girl unenthusiastically. The kid looked horrible and had obvious bags under his eyes along with some serious bedhead.

"Uh, sure! Digivolution Activate!" she yelled.

"Syakomon digivolve to… Ranamon!" the shellfish shouted, becoming the Legendary Warrior of Water. "Okay, honies, it turns out that we'll have to walk to that place underwater. Are y'all ready?"

Everyone gave nods of ascent and the digimon manipulated the water as the group moved toward Dagomon's location.

It took hours. Every so often, Miki would notice that Ranamon was getting tired and therefore tried keeping the digimon awake with stamina seed cards. She hoped that they would be able to reach wherever the Dark Undersea Master was before the digimon collapsed from exhaustion.

After many miles, the group spotted something in the distance. They were all underwater and due to the dark nature of the water they couldn't see much in front of them, however, they noticed this thing from only a few miles away. The massive structure was a sort of underwater city that was housed underneath a glass dome of sorts. Unfortunately, the city gave an air of dread, something that was starting to overwhelm Abigail's senses and put everyone else on edge.

They continued forward until they found an entrance. Thankfully there didn't seem to be any guards. Maybe Dagomon was too smug to think he needed any or maybe there was something waiting for them once they got inside. Whatever it was, the team was on high alert.

They all entered into the domed metropolis through an entrance far to the left of where they were originally headed. Once inside, they walked up some stairs that ended up leading into actual air.

"Alright, we did it! Thanks, Ranamon!" Miki exclaimed as her partner devolved and collapsed onto the ground out of exhaustion.

"Okay, now's the time for a food and bathroom break," Tadashi told the team, rushing off with Coronamon around the corner to do his business.

"Is there anything wrong?" the lion asked, pausing after Tadashi had finished.

"No, nothing's wrong!" the blond snapped after he zipped up his pants. There was no shortage of statues around this place. That was certain. Looking around, he saw a large number of them, mostly looking like some squid thing that he figured was Dagomon. At the same time, the blond found the whole thing profoundly creepy, thinking that there could have been a Deep One around the corner.

"Well, you seem kind of testy," Coronamon observed. "It's not about what happened last night, is it?"

Tadashi glared, wishing everyone would stop bringing that up. As it was, they all sided against him and that was starting to get to him. It was annoying.

On the way back to camp, the blond ran into Eduardo and Prokyomon. The dark-haired boy tried to stop the blond. "Tadashi, we need to talk."

"Not now, Eddy," was the blond's response. There was no way he was going to talk to the black-haired teen about their little squabble.

###

"You know, I really need to wash my hands right about now," Miki complained.

"You should have used one of the streams on the continent. Those weren't contaminated," Gunter replied, biting into a cliff bar. He was really starting to get sick of the things since that seemed to be all they had been eating since they arrived in the dark world.

"In the meantime, at least we have hand-sanitizer," Ayaka commented as she ate a granola bar. She hoped to finish this mission off soon since they only had about a day's supply off food left.

"Yeah, but I like the feeling of water on my hands. Also, that hand-sanitizer really dries them out," the dark-haired girl remarked, looking at her dry skin.

"You know, I didn't think of bringing lotion," Ed remarked. "Now I know better."

Abby chuckled and smiled before glancing over at Tadashi, who was quietly eating a cliff bar. The girl frowned at him. How could he have so much hatred for Ed's father? It didn't seem plausible to her.

At the same time, she was definitely on Ed's side during the whole thing. She sincerely hoped that they could get the thing sorted out.

###

After a few minutes, the group embarked on their journey once again. The city seemed to be getting creepier and creepier. For some reason, it reminded Abby of Atlantis from the Little Mermaid, only black and grey instead of gold. Plus, there was the conspicuous lack of mermaids running around. Also, the geometry of the place seemed way off since it was full of arches and odd-looking buildings that rarely had right angles.

The group continued on, aiming for the building that housed the Dark Undersea Master. They hoped that this whole situation would end easily, but they all knew that it wouldn't end without a fight.

Unfortunately, the freak factor ended up shooting way up when they made their way around a corner when they spotted something so horrific that they couldn't believe their eyes and just stood there in shock.

What they found were their parents, or at least copies of them, impaled on large purple spikes. Every single one of them was there along with other relatives. Tadashi saw his mother, father and brother, Miki her parents, Ayaka her parents and sister, Abby saw her parents and brothers and finally Ed saw his mother, father and step-father.

"This is just sick," Tadashi finally said. Even the sight of Antonio Guevara's impalement disturbed him and he didn't even like the guy.

"What's the point?" Ed asked, horrified at the imagery. "What's Dagomon trying to do?"

"He's trying to shock us into submission or something," Ayaka suggested, her hands in a tight grip.

"Still, what a freak!" Miki commented, rolling her eyes at the sight.

"More than a freak. A monster," Gunter corrected, his face contorted in anger. "I'm going to smash that guy right in!"

That remark made Ed realize that that was what the Dark Undersea Master really wanted. "Don't get angry, otherwise you're just playing into his hands."

The others just looked at the black-haired teen in surprise but they all realized he had a point. "This is just awful," Abby remarked.

"Don't worry, though, those are definitely not our real parents," Tadashi told the others while continuing to grimace. "Still, I totally agree."

"Why do I get the feeling we're all going to have to see psychologists after this is all over?" Gunter inquired. "I mean, this is a sight that would traumatize anyone that saw it."

However, Coronamon noticed something else that was wrong. "Uh, guys…"  
Salamon saw it too. "Those spikes are coming down!" she exclaimed. Sure enough, the spikes were lowering until the duplicates that were impaled on them were almost to the ground. The duplicates had large amounts of purple lines all across their bodies including where the hole was in their torsos and didn't look like their parents any longer, but cybernetic zombies instead. The clones started to move as well, opening their eyes and revealing the purple underneath.

Tadashi immediately pulled out his digivice and identified these creatures. "Huskmon, Champion Level, Cyborg Digimon, Virus Attribute, Attacks: Garra del Zombi, Reaper's Screech. These are digimon created from the bodies of other digimon that are impaled on purple spikes, technology left by so-called abomination digimon such as Dagomon or Sovereignmon."

Sure enough, the Huskmon lunged forward and the digimon all had to digivolve to their Champion Forms.

"Coronamon digivolve to… Firamon!"

"Salamon digivolve to… D'Arcmon!"

"Syakomon digivolve to… Ranamon!"

"Keramon digivolve to… Chrysalimon!"

"Cutemon digivolve to… Rabbitmon!"

"Prokyomon digivolve to… Guepardomon!"

The fight was quick. They had fought against enough Champions by that point to know how to deal with them and, despite the enemy being quite tough, they seemed to be easy to take out using combined attacks.

"Wolverine Claw!" Guepardomon shouted, slicing through several Huskmon in one scoop.

"Carrot Bomber!" Rabbitmon called out.

"Whipping Waves!" Ranamon yelled, combining her attack with Rabbitmon to take out several more Huskmon.

"Fira Bomb!"

"Dancing Sword!" Combined, the attacks of Firamon and D'Arcmon took out even more of the Huskmon, demolishing the zombies completely.

After the last of the Huskmon was disposed of, the group knew they had to continue and not let the disturbing things they've seen get to them.

It was while they were walking toward the massive temple in the center of the massive city that Ed decided to finally talk to Tadashi about their little problem. In other words, he decided to try and apologize despite it not really being his fault. "Tadashi, I'm sorry I snapped at you yesterday."

The blond didn't respond. Ed didn't know what else to say to his friend to get him to forgive him for keeping his parentage a secret. Maybe he should apologize for that. Maybe…

Before he could even attempt that, Abby pulled him back so that they could talk in the back of the group. "Maybe you should just let him cool off a little longer," the girl advised him.

"I know, but it's true. I shouldn't have snapped at him like that," Ed replied.

Abby snorted. "I didn't think that you were out of line."

He chuckled to himself. "Yeah, but… well… I don't know. My dad never yells at me. Okay, he can get angry, but he doesn't snap like that." Ed smiled. "One time I cussed around him. He just simply told me that he didn't want me cussing. That whole experience that he was actually a really cool guy," Ed explained. "And yeah, I didn't quite agree with him, but I was more willing to comply since he was nice to me."

What Ed didn't realize was that Tadashi was paying attention and it was starting to pain him deeply that he wasn't friendly towards Ed the day before.

###

Back in Abby's native reality's digital world, the mysterious enemy decided he was bored. "Okay, Gizumon, let's have fun," he said. "Destroy all Control Spires in the area!"

The machine shot out an energy beam at each of the nearby control spires. _This should make Emperor Symanski take action, _the man thought, adjusting his glasses and smiling. He was Japanese and he had a large nose and freshly-cut short hair.

Now was time for the first phase of his experiment to be conducted. Hopefully it would do exactly what he wanted.

###

David Symanski was furious. A number of his Control Spires had been knocked down and he realized that more would be soon. Still, he knew that fighting this man while he's out of the area of his control would be fruitless. So, he entered into the room where he could communicate with his colleague, the Second Emperor.

After a few seconds, the holographic image flickered and the entity from another reality appeared. "What do you want?" Symanski's ally asked brusquely, annoyed that he would be attempting to contact him.

"A man just arrived in my world who can reach the Mega Level. He has just destroyed a number of control spires," David spoke pointedly, gritting his teeth. "I need the schematics for the Dark Bangle now!"

The Second Emperor stared at the teen through his mask. "You're desperate, aren't you? You don't even have as much area as I did when I designed the Dark Bangle. Why should I give it to you?"

"It's an emergency!" the brown-haired teen exclaimed. "You have to give the schematics to me, please! I beg of you!"

The other Emperor chuckled. "Well, well, well… No."

Then the connection was cut and David found himself throwing his digivice across the room. He hated this. Now he would have to go to Taizou for advice.

One thing was certain; the Second Emperor was a jerk.

###

The Emperor made his way down to the dungeon where Taizou was being held while holding a torch. He admired the architecture of the castle he was in, one that was wrested from a Myotismon who ruled a nice-sized chunk of the region the Emperor controlled today.

The brown-haired Japanese boy was busy reading a book. David looked at the title: Foundation, a space opera written by Isaac Asimov. He hadn't read it himself, but he intended to someday.

"Excuse me, Taizou, I need to speak with you," the skinny, brown-haired American said simply.

"Wait, so what do you want, exactly?" Robert asked from the other cell. "Here to gloat?"

"No, you idiot, I need advice," the Emperor snapped angrily.

"What will you give me in return?" Taizou inquired.

"I'll make you my chancellor," David responded.

"Oh, Emperor Damien, I'm afraid that's not enough," the short-haired teen responded with a smile.

"Okay, what do you want?" the Emperor inquired, at his wit's end. He was starting to grit his teeth.

"Simple, you release Yuji, Robert and I along with our partners. We'll take the Dimensional Corridor and leave this place, never to come and torment you again," Taizou proposed. He hoped that he would be able to get reinforcements wherever he went that could topple the Emperor's regime for good. Who knew, maybe he would even be able to find the Digidestined like Tai, assuming they even existed. Then again, there is a Dark Ocean… "Deal?"

The Emperor was desperate. "Deal."

"Okay, tell me about your problem, your highness," Taizou ordered, sarcastic about the last part.

David Symanski explained what was happening. "I have an intruder in my realm, an adult Tamer of sorts. At first, I just left him alone and he didn't do anything for about twenty-four hours." The Emperor paused for a brief second.

"Let me guess, he started destroying everything in sight?" Taizou guessed. This piqued his interest. "What did he look like?"

"I fail to see how this matters," the Emperor responded.

"Just tell me or show me a picture. I might know the guy if he's from my world," the Japanese boy explained.

While the Emperor started searching his pockets for a photograph, he described him. "He's Asian, short black hair and circular glasses." David finally found the photo and handed it to Taizou. The brown-haired teen didn't recognize the man, other than that he was some sort of scientist. He had a big nose as well.

Then again, he had heard of a scientist from Yokohama disappearing. Maybe this was him.

"What about the partner?" Taizou inquired. David was actually ready with a picture this time. The man gave him an image of a purple mechanical monstrosity. "I definitely don't recognize the digimon. As far as his Tamer, there's a possibility that he's a scientist from Yokohama in my world."

_A scientist from Yokohama? Why does that seem so familiar? _Yuji asked himself. He thought about it for a few seconds before realizing that one of the people he almost sold a digimon to was a scientist from Yokohama, a professor at the university there. Unfortunately, he couldn't remember the name. It had been a busy few months.

Taizou thought for a few seconds. "Did you ask what he wanted?" the short-haired Japanese boy asked. "Then maybe you can resolve this without a fight, especially if sending hordes of Ultimate-level digimon doesn't work against this guy."

The Emperor thought about it for a second. "Okay, that's exactly what I'll do," he said, grinning. "And as for you, you'll be released once this problem is resolved, not a moment before."

Taizou was expecting that. Yuji on the other hand… "What do you mean?" The long-haired boy asked angrily, grabbing onto the metal bars that lined his cell. "He just told you how to solve your stupid problem and…"

"Can't you shut up for one second!" the Emperor snapped angrily, glaring at Yuji. "We don't know that he solved my problem. We'll only know when I test this little attempt at diplomacy out!"

With that, the Emperor rushed out of the cell.

###

Tadashi and the others finally made it to Dagomon's castle, a non-Euclidean nightmare of epic proportions that looked like it came from a surreal horror movie. About the only things that were remotely normal were the two statues of angels, though those were covering their faces. Coronamon felt somewhat unnerved by that.

"So, what do we do? Just walk up and knock?" Miki asked sarcastically.

"No, we barge in. There's no way this guy would accept anything less after declaring war on two, possibly three dimensions," Tadashi replied and they walked forward, past the two statues. Coronamon looked at them as they walked past, unnerved. He expected them to move at any second.

Then he turned away briefly before looking back.

"Uh, guys!" Coronamon exclaimed, frightened by what he had just seen.

"What is it?" Tadashi asked his partner. Gunter, on the other hand, realized exactly what was going on.

"Those angels aren't covering their faces anymore," the brown-haired teen remarked. And surely they weren't

"Are you sure you're not just seeing things?" Ayaka inquired.

"Look at the statues. Don't even blink," Coronamon told the others.

Ed decided to try something, pulling out his digivice and scanning the statues. "WeepingAngemon, Ultimate Level, Virus Attribute. Oh crap. So much for conserving our strength to fight Dagomon." The heavy American gritted his teeth nervously.

"What is that? Like a dark-digivolution of Angemon or something?" Abby inquired.

"No, they actually digivolve from Golemon," Coronamon explained. "I ran into one while traveling just after the D-Reaper. They only move whenever you turn away from them."

"Okay, I got an idea," Tadashi told the group. "All Tamers look at the WeepingAngemon. All digimon look at the door. As soon as we get into Dagomon's palace/castle/whatever, shut the door and lock it and run!"

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Ed responded. That struck Tadashi slightly. This guy wasn't questioning his orders even though the blond had yelled at him? The Japanese boy found that more than a little confusing.

"And whatever you guys do, don't look into the WeepingAngemons' eyes, okay?" Coronamon said, moving along with the rest of the Tamers. "You don't want more WeepingAngemon coming up out of nowhere."

The group continued on, opening the doors.

"That's a problem," Prokyomon commented as he looked into the castle. There were two more WeepingAngemon inside, both still covering their eyes.

"No kidding. I'm just glad I blinked just before we opened the door," Salamon commented as they entered into the frighteningly weird building full of disturbing creatures. The brick was grey and moldy, something to be expected from an underwater city, especially since the air was moist.

"Okay, at a count of three, we'll close the door," Tadashi said. "Abby, Gunter, can you watch the WeepingAngemon that are outside while Abby, Miki, Ed and I shut the doors and lock them?"

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Gunter remarked as the other spread out. He and Abby took turns blinking as Tadashi and Ayaka pushed from one side while Ed and Miki pushed from the other side. As soon as it shut, the group immediately locked the door up as quickly as possible, even as it was getting pounded from the other side.

The digimon continued watching the other two WeepingAngemon even after the door was shut. "Okay, similar plan. Digimon, you guys watch the angels while we climb the stairs to the next room," Tadashi told the group. "Hopefully that can be shut too."

"Yeah, so, other than the whole conservation of energy thing, why aren't we fighting these things again?" Gunther questioned.

"The defense of a WeepingAngemon is so high that even Mega-levels have a hard time defeating them," Coronamon replied, watching the two angels as the group climbed up the stairs and into a nearby room. Then they sealed that one as soon as possible. There was pounding on the door this time as well, even as Coronamon melted the door shut.

Then the digimon looked up.

Somehow, they were in the same room, just on the ceiling. The two WeepingAngemon were at the door that they went through. The group just stood there with their mouths opened.

"Okay, now that's just retarded!" Gunter exclaimed, grimacing at the sight of the two enemy digimon on the floor.

"At least they can't really get to us from down there. Still, I would stare at them in case they decided to come in through the door somehow," Coronamon told the muscular teen.

"Okay, nearest door?" Tadashi asked.

"Over there," Ed pointed at a single door across the room.

"Oh, and by the way, we got more company," Salamon told the group.

"She's right!" Ayaka exclaimed, pointing at the front door where the two other WeepingAngemon had just broken in.

"This is just getting more and more annoying," Gunter grumbled, slumping over.

"You said it," Miki agreed.

"Hey, we knew it wasn't going to be easy," Tadashi told the group, a bit annoyed that they would be acting that way.

"You know, he's right," Ed replied. There it was again: the black-haired teen actually agreed with the blond.

"You actually agree with me, huh?" Tadashi inquired, surprised, as the group made their way across the ceiling.

"I agree when you're right. You think I would just pick a fight with you because I'm angry with you because of yesterday?" Ed asked, grinning slightly. The group made their way to the door and opened it.

"Any angels?" Tadashi asked, still monitoring the four WeepingAngemon on the floor.

"No, the coast is clear," Ayaka replied as the group entered into the room. Coronamon made sure that the door was fused together all over, hinges, everything.

"That should keep them out for at least a little bit," the fiery lion said, clapping his hands. Then he looked at where they were at. "Oh, heck no!"

The room they were in consisted of various squares, some glowing a sky blue color, others not, all over a massive pit.

"What is this? Some sort of teleportation puzzle?" Gunter asked in annoyance.

"Oh, yeah! I know the way!" Keramon exclaimed, running forward and onto a teleporting squared. His partner immediately followed him.

"What do you mean you know the way?" the large German asked, following his partner. The others followed him as well.

"Great, couldn't he have waited? This guy's going to get us all killed," Tadashi complained.

"I can see the paths and where they lead!" Keramon exclaimed, smiling happily. It felt good to be important for once.

"How the heck can you do that?" Gunter asked, still confused.

"This is technology! And I can see the path!" the digimon shouted crazily. Before they knew it, they were all past the platforms. Gunter had to wait a few seconds before the others made it to where he was at. In the meantime, he checked out his digivice, specifically the mapping system.

"Can you not do that next time?" Tadashi asked the large German, who was leaning against the wall.

"Sorry, my partner can get pretty excited sometimes," Gunter responded. "By the way, looking at the mapping system on our digivice, it's pretty much useless."

Immediately, the blond pulled out his digivice and looked at that particular system. All the got was the current room and static. There weren't any markers that indicated where Dagomon could have been. Instead, they were currently stuck in the castle of a million mind-screws. He wanted to strangle the contractor for the place.

Still, right after they gathered together, they made into the next room.

The first thing they noticed as soon as they enter into the dank, grey hallway were the pillars on the sides, all transparent glass and filled with liquid. Inside the tanks were people. At first, the Tamers didn't recognize them as they walked by, even though they knew they needed a way to save them.

Then Ayaka noticed something. "Is it just me or does this guy look a little like Davis Motomiya?"

That caught the attention of the rest of the team as they gathered around the tank, watching the figure inside as bubbles came up from below. He definitely looked the part with the clothes, though he lacked the goggles that Tai gave him.

"You have got to be kidding me," Miki said, disbelieving. "Let me guess, that blond guy's someone too."

They looked that way as well. "TK," Tadashi mumbled. "And that girl with the bad dye job's Yolei. And Cody's over there too."

"So… They failed against Dagomon?" Ed asked, a shiver going down his spine.

"This is so creepy," Abby commented before looking over at another figure. "David?"

"What? What's Abby's loser brother doing here?" Miki asked before getting a glare from the brunette.

Ed looked down at the digi-code at the base. It was alphabetical unlike the others, so he pulled out his toy D-Terminal from his computer bag and started decrypting it. Sure enough, it came out to David Symanski.

"Still, what's the Digimon Emperor of Abby's World doing here?" Gunter inquired, really confused.

"This must be this world's version of him," Ayaka suggested, scratching her chin. She looked at some of the other figures, all of which may have been European or American. "Ed, can you decode the rest of the names?"

"Okay, I'll do that," the dark-haired boy responded, writing down the name of the next guy on a piece of paper. He was a skinny guy with pale, freckled skin and black hair. "Alan Falcon."  
"Doesn't mean anything to me," Tadashi remarked.

"The next is Andrew Laino and the following one is Sergio Corona. Then there's Aaron Lightfoot and the last is Broc Larson," Ed continued indicating a blond guy, a Mexican of mixed European and Indian ancestry with full lips, a black guy and a pudgy brown-haired guy.

"What? Are there no girls on this team?" Miki complained.

"No kidding," Abby said in agreement.

"Maybe Dagomon has them," Gunter suggested, shuddering at the thought.

"Don't make me think like that," the brunette said with a shudder.

Ayaka decided to examine the devices along with Gunter and Keramon, starting with Davis'. "Any ideas on how to open these?" she asked, looking around for an off-switch.

"Keramon, any ideas, buddy?" the large German asked his partner, who was interfacing with the chambers.

"I might be able to get these guys out of here… Let's see…" the digimon wasn't his normal, goofy self. Seeing all this made him think of what would happen if he and his partner lost against Dagomon.

And then there was the idea that Dagomon's castle could come down on them when they defeated him. Not that it was that prabable, but he didn't want to take any chances.

Suddenly Davis's tank started to empty and the brown-haired Japanese boy slumped against the front of the tank. With that, Gunter decided to break open the glass and pull the kid out, which he did easily. The other tanks started to empty as well.

Davis opened his eyes groggily. "Kari… I must save Kari…" Then he passed out.

"How about this: a couple of us will stay behind and get these guys out while the rest take on Dagomon," Tadashi told the group.

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Ed replied. There he was again, agreeing with Tadashi despite how the blond treated him.

"I'll stay," Abby volunteered.

"What?" Ed asked in surprise.

"I can't reach Ultimate just yet and besides, I'm not much of a fighter," she responded before looking over to the alternate counterpart of her brother. "Plus, I want to see what _he's_ like in this world."

"Don't worry, we'll help out good, kyu!" Cutemon responded while healing Davis.

"I maybe I should stay too," Ayaka told the others with a bit of a smile. "Plus, you're going to need back-up in case this doesn't work."

"But you can reach Ultimate," Tadashi told her.

"And so can I," Gunter said.

"What about you, Ed?" the blond asked the heavier boy.

"I'm going with you so I can find out what this digimon has against me," Ed replied, determined to get this over with.

Abby walked over to him. "Be careful, okay?"

Ed smiled back. "You too."

Then she kissed him, to the shock of everyone in the room, especially Ed whose eyes were bugging out from the surprise. "Promise me you'll be safe," she told him, holding onto his hands.

"I will be," he replied back, even more determined as he went with the others. Tadashi felt a bit of jealousy and so did Gunter. Ayaka was just surprised.

So the four of them moved forward into the next room.

###

Dagomon got up from his throne and moved forward. He hated how such insolent humans could possibly come into his castle and invade it. They even made it past the Huskmon and the WeepingAngemon, much to his surprise.

"This ends now," the large octopus-like abomination said in a deep voice, glaring at the team in front of him. His room was much more ornate than the rest of the castle, even though it looked like the sort of place that Aquaman would be at home in if it weren't so gloomy. Also, the room had two children of light on display behind him, waiting for their maturation, Kari and someone else, a black-haired boy that looked almost exactly like Ed.

The chunky boy realized that if they lost here, Abby would be on display as well. Still, it disturbed him that the guy over there looked just like him. He knew his crest definitely wasn't light, since the Undersea Master hated him, though, and obviously didn't see him as the same guy as in the tank, meaning that there was only one person he could possibly be…

"First you violate my city of R'lyeh, then you break into my trophies and now you come here," Dagomon complained to them.

"Yeah? Well you took over this digital world and when that wasn't enough, you decided to invade three others," Tadashi told the massive octopus, who just laughed loudly and gutturally.

"Oh, is that the case? Well, I needed somewhere else to go after the Celestials of this realm decided to sacrifice themselves to seal the barriers between this world and the Human world permanently." The abomination was angry. "So, what did you think of those Huskmon. They telepathically change shape to look like the loved ones of any Digidestined that come across them."

"That was just sick," Ed shot back. "That you would do something like that shows that you're one of the worst examples of Digimon kind in existence."

Dagomon snorted. "Oh, really? Of course someone like you would say that, you with that horrific crest of yours."

Ed glared at him and so did the others. They didn't want to fight, but they knew that this was one battle they couldn't step away from.

And with that, his digivice emitted a slight red glow before it disappeared.

Tadashi decided to take the lead. "Super Digivolution Activate!" he yelled, along with the others sans Ed, who simply shouted "Digivolution Activate!"

"Coronamon digivolve to… Flaremon!"

"Keramon digivolve to… Infermon!"

"Syakomon digivolve to… Calamaramon!"

"Prokyomon digivolve to… Guepardomon!"

The stage was set for the fate of four digital worlds and possibly that many human worlds as well.

###

A/N: Huskmon comes from the Mass Effect enemies known as the Husks, which were annoying little things. I remember when I first encountered them how they killed me a couple times… Man, I need to finish that game. It's like the only M-Rated one I own (I play Paragon, so it's more of a T for me).

And WeepingAngemon is yet another Doctor Who reference. Funny how I didn't really watch that show before writing this fic and now I'm in the middle of the fifth season (gotta feel sorry for Rory. Oh, and Amy's hot and Scottish. I'm ¼ Scottish on my paternal grandmother's side).

And I had a brief cameo as one of the failed Digidestined in this chapter. Good luck on figuring out which one. Not that I save the day or anything... heh. The rest are a few of my friends, random ones, most of which don't even know I'm writing this.

Also, have a guess as to the identity of Ed's crest? And does anybody have a good idea for Cutemon's Ultimate form? And Mega? Leave a review if you have one.


	24. Santiago

Chapter 24: Santiago

###

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, just the OCs. This is just a story written for my amusement. Mwahaha!

###

_Leaving for the US at the beginning of Summer Vacation was probably one of his better ideas, especially since the DNA test just came up positive and he had work off. Unfortunately, it was a little colder in Las Vegas than he expected it to be since it was winter there. Thankfully it wasn't as cold as some places._

_ However, as he waited in the courtroom for the trial to begin, he couldn't help but fear that it wasn't going to go as well as he had hoped. Glancing at his watch, he could see that it was already almost time to start. He prayed beforehand, hoping that maybe things would go a bit better than he expected, though he didn't hold his breath too much._

_ Then the trial started and he went up to where he was supposed to go, standing next to his lawyer as he did so. Looking over, all he saw was his ex-wife's lawyer and not her, something which he found strange. Surely this woman wasn't thinking of ditching the trial just because she didn't want to deal with him. Where was the logic in that?_

_ "You did make sure she knew, right?" the judge, a middle-aged black man, asked._

_ "Yes, your honor," Antonio's lawyer responded. The man was quite plump and balding. "I talked to her personally and let her know that there would be a custody trial today. Of course, she responded by hanging up on me."_

_ The judge was already unimpressed with that woman, and he generally gave women more of an advantage in these kinds of things._

_ "Okay, Mr. Gwevera, what makes you think you should have custody of Eduardo Diaz?" the man inquired._

_ Antonio stood and spoke, shuddering slightly at the odd mispronunciation of his last name. "Well, he's my son and he's been kept secret from me for fourteen years. If you look at the divorce papers for my marriage to his mother, you can see that there weren't any instances of abuse and that she ultimately committed adultery and didn't want the relationship to continue even though I offered. Also, I own my own house and I have a close relationship with the boy's grandparents who live around the corner from me, who are very kind and generous people. I also know some kids his age that would make good friends for him."_

_ The trial only lasted a couple days, but the man was given full custody. His lawyer made sure to call his ex-wife. All he got was the answering machine which he promptly left a message on, explaining that Antonio would have custody of his son starting that Friday, the Friday before winter break began in Vegas._

_###_

_ Ed waited as the seconds remaining before school ended passed ever so slowly, wishing that the last five minutes would wiz by faster._

_ He thought about how boring winter break was going to be. Ever since his mother got custody of him, they never did anything and he hated talking to her. He cursed her, the secrets she kept and the DNA test that proved that Marcos Diaz wasn't his real father. And then he cursed his real father, the man that he would never see as long as he lived because his mother was like that._

_ He hated her._

_ Ed barely noticed the black girl a grade higher than him walk into the room and talk to the teacher, handing her a yellow slip. The girl was just a student aide and most likely it wouldn't involve him._

_ Except that it did._

_ "Eduardo Diaz, one of your parents is here to pick you up," the teacher spoke. The boy got up and followed the girl reluctantly, grumbling all the way there. He didn't want to see his mother and he wondered why the witch decided to pick him up early on a school day. She never picked him up. Heck, she was supposed to be working at that time. Things just didn't add up._

_ The boy glanced at his jet black digivice's clock as he followed the black girl out of the hallway into the courtyard. It was two minutes before school got out for two weeks._

_ He tried to think positively even as they neared the offices. Maybe his mother was going to take him to Chinese._

_ When he walked in with the girl, his mother was nowhere in sight. He didn't recognize anybody there, though he noticed a man stand up with a surprised expression on his face. The man seemed familiar to Ed for some reason. He didn't know why. He was just some fat man with curly hair._

_ Except that he was definitely not. Ed knew right then who he was from the tears going down his face. The man ran over to him and hugged him tightly._

_ "Ed… I'm sorry."  
"You're… You're my dad," the chubby boy responded in shock. This wasn't happening. This was just some dream he was having._

_ After a few seconds, the bell rang and he left with the stranger that was his father. "Come with me. You have all your stuff packed, right?" the mysterious man asked, pulling Eduardo along._

_ "Uh, no. Was I supposed to?" the black-haired boy asked, being pulled along by his father._

_ "I got custody of you earlier this week. Your mother was ordered by the judge to have you pack your things," the heavy man responded, stopping briefly. "And I was told to pick you up today. She didn't tell you, did she?"_

_ Ed shook his head. "No, I had no idea there was even a trial," he responded in shock._

_ The heavy man shook his head. "That woman…" Then he realized his mistake. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't talk about her like that."_

_ "It's alright. She's a…" The twelve-year-old described her with an expletive. His father chuckled a bit after a bit of shock._

_ "You shouldn't swear, Ed," the heavy man told him after regaining his composure. "Rule one for living with me, no profanity in any language."_

_ Ed laughed. He was just glad that he wasn't yelling at him, though the man didn't seem like the type to do that. "Okay, I won't cuss."_

_ The man nodded before leading his son to his blue truck before directing him to get in._

_ "Nice truck," the black-haired boy told him._

_ "It's a rental," he admitted. "My real car's a motorcycle." The man started the car. "You know, I've been so tempted to just come here and see you ever since I met your step-father. I figured it wouldn't look good for the trial, so I didn't do it. That and I was a bit busy doing some work for a good friend of mine."_

_ "How'd mom do at the trial?" Ed inquired out of curiosity._

_ The man paused for a second, trying to think out a response. He was nervous. They both were. "Well, let's just say that she didn't do so hot, especially since she did the idiotic thing and played hookie the first day," the large man said. "By the way, my papers showing that I have custody of you are on the dash. And if you're wondering, the name's Antonio Guevara."_

_ Ed stared at the man in shock. "No way," he said with a smile. "I'm related to Che."_

_ Antonio looked mortified. "Not likely!"_

_ "What?" Ed questioned._

_ "Well, here's the thing, Che's Argentinean and his kids all lived in Cuba if I remember right. I'm not. Okay, so we're both descendants of Basque settlers here in the Americas, but his came way later. Plus, I don't agree with his outlook on life. I'm definitely not a Marxist revolutionary." The man laughed as they stopped at a light. "Oh, no… I believe in God and I'm definitely religious."_

_ Ed didn't know what to think of that. He wasn't sure what it would be like. Was his father incredibly strict like some religious parents? He hoped not. Actually, so far, it didn't seem that way. The man didn't yell at him for calling his mother a female dog, after all._

_ After a few minutes longer, they reached Ed's house in a nearby development. Las Vegas could definitely be summed up as endless suburbs once you got outside the Strip._

_ "Okay, I guess we'll need to get this over with before your mum gets home," the heavy man said. "Pack up everything you can, or at least all your clothes. I'm not sure if Lorena will let you make a second trip."_

_ "You might want to help, dad. She's going to be ticked if she sees you here and she gets off at five."_

_ "Good, we have two hours. To be honest, I'm surprised she hasn't shown up yet," the heavy man commented as he got out of the truck, his face turning to one of concern._

_ "Sheesh, dad, don't jinx it," his son reprimanded him._

_ "Oh, please, that old superstition?" Antonio asked, chuckling._

_ "Religious but not superstitious? That almost seems like a contradiction," Ed told him._

_ "Oh, no, my religion counsels us against superstition. Heck, we don't even throw rice at weddings," the man told him. Ed nodded as he opened the door to his house._

_ "What about the rituals you do at church?" he inquired._

_ The man explained everything as they wandered into Ed's messy room, namely that there really weren't any strange rituals. The bed wasn't made, there were clothes all over the floor and clutter all over the furniture. "Oh boy," Antonio said in shock at the sight._

_ "Yeah, if mom would have told me, I would have at least done my laundry," the heavy boy remarked. "So, what do your religious meetings consist of if they don't have any strange rituals like sacrificing goats?" It was a joke._

_ "Oh, that rumor again. Just because we don't have windows on our buildings…" Antonio chuckled, finding it funny more than anything before he explained what his religion actually consisted of._

_ Ed didn't speak for a moment as the two of them filled his biggest suitcase with dirty clothes with the exception of the few from his dresser. He also pulled his books out of his backpack and put them on the dresser before filling it with things such as his drawing pad and a couple of computer games. Then again, he probably should leave a couple behind. He wasn't sure how his dad would react to him playing Half-Life. He figured he'd also leave his X-Box behind. He figured they were going to be flying._

_ "By the way, since you're leaving your computer behind, I'll just buy you one at Fry's on the way out of town. The plane doesn't leave until about seven."_

_ "Okay, that's good to know," Ed responded. He looked straight at the man's face and was amazed by how similar they looked. The man seemed to have so much sadness because of all the years that he never got to spend with his son._

_ "So, I guess we'll have to leave. Have any friends you want to say good-bye to?" the man asked._

_ "Yeah, I have one," Ed replied, knowing exactly who to see. "By the way, where are we headed? West coast, east coast, mid-west?"_

_ "Santiago, Chile!" the heavy man responded. Ed stopped in his path, looking on with such dread._

_ "Wow… I, uh, don't know what to say," the heavy boy responded, locking and shutting his front door for one last time._

_ Antonio could tell that Ed didn't want to leave the country. "I'm… I'm sorry," he told him, frowning._

_ Ed was pretty somber even as he gave directions to his friend Matt's place._

###

The group faced Dagomon down. Their partners moved forward as the powerful digimon unleashed one of his attacks on them. "Thousand Whips!" the abomination yelled out, nailing both Flaremon and Calmaramon with his tentacles before aiming at the others.

When the attack nearly hit Guepardomon, the Champion was able to counter. "Spinning Cutter!" he yelled out, slicing the tentacles into tiny pieces and causing small amounts of pain to Dagomon, but not enough to damage him greatly.

"You'll pay for that," the Cthulhu look-alike grumbled as he saw Flaremon prepare an attack with his fists.

"Crimson Beast-King Wave!" the lion-like Ultimate yelled out, unleashing the attack on his enemy.

"Acid Ink!" Calmaramon shouted, barfing out a large amount of ink from her mouth. The two attacks nearly hit Dagomon, but the Undersea Master countered by summoning up jets of water that blocked the two attacks before they hit.

###

"So far, so good," Abby said smiling as her partner healed the last of the failed digidestined, her brother. "I wonder what Dagomon was keeping these guys here for."

"Whatever it was, it was nothing good. Now we need a way to get these guys out of here and somewhere safe," Ayaka instructed, grimacing. "Great, it's not like we can carry these guys anywhere."

"My Ultimate form can teleport anywhere she has already been," Salamon suggested.

"But that could take a large amount of energy," the blond objected.

"Plus, where could we take these guys, anyway?" Abby asked. "We're in the middle of the flipping Dark Ocean for crying out loud."

The girls thought about it for a few minutes. "How about that canyon where we started out?" Ayaka suggested.

"That's a great idea!" Abby squealed, barely containing her elation.

It was then that globs of black sludge came down from the holes in the ceilings above where the digidestined once floated, dropping down and forming into Deep Ones. The two girls knew that this wasn't a good sign.

Still, they needed to get out of there. "Super Digivolution Activate!" Ayaka shouted, causing her partner to digivolve.

"Salamon digivolve to… Sanzomon!"

The monk faced the enemy digimon.

"I have an idea," Abby told Ayaka. "What if you were to have your partner use her healing powers on these guys?"

Ayaka looked at the brown-haired girl with a terrified expression. "What? Are you nuts?"

"Hey, it works when fighting zombies in RPGs. Maybe it'll work here," the brown-haired girl explained with a shrug, grinning. "Cutemon, you do the same!"

With that, Sanzomon moved forward, placed one palm on a deep one's chest and forehead and used her healing powers. The former digimon screeched before shifting forms into an ExVeemon who quickly devolved into Veemon.

"Ow…" the blue dragon muttered before turning looking around. The two girls were shocked. The digimon didn't notice that, though. Instead, he headed straight for his partner. "Davis! I'm so sorry!"

With that, Sanzomon and Cutemon knew their mission, though it wasn't going to be easy. It took more effort for Cutemon, but the pink rabbit managed to convert a Deep One into a blue dragon known as Coredramon which quickly transformed into a small, green Dracomon.

Maybe the Tamers and their partners would make it out of that nightmare after all.

###

Dagomon took everyone by surprise when he launched a spurt of dark water straight at Flaremon, causing the digimon to scream in agony as steam rolled off his body. Still, Calmaramon was able to redirect the water before it forced devolution in the lion.

"Thanks for the save," Flaremon told the squid.

"Don't worry about it, honey," Calamaramon replied, grinning at the digimon.

"Spider Shooter!" Infermon yelled out, though the attack was also blocked by Dagomon's bursts of water.

"Great! None of our attacks are having any effect," Guepardomon complained in his husky voice, gritting his teeth.

At the same time as the battle above, the Tamers were trying to figure out what else they could do to help. "Here's an idea," suggested Gunter, "How about we go and get those two kids who are trapped behind Dagomon?"

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Tadashi responded.

"It's too dangerous," Ed objected. The blond wondered when he would finally find a point to disagree with the black-haired teen on. Still, it weirded him out a little that the guy in the tank looked just like the heavier teen.

"You're right. If you make contact with your alternate self, you could end up fused to him or something," the blond remarked. "Or at least that was what the Watchmaker said." Tadashi scratched his chin in thought.

"Fuse with your alternate self?" Ed asked incredulously. "What… How does that even work?"

"Beat's me. I just know that the Watchmaker said that there were time clones or whatever waiting for us back at home so that our parents don't worry about us," Tadashi responded.

Ed looked on in determination. He figured the guy wasn't him since he had the crest of light, theoretically and Ed most likely didn't since Dagomon wasn't drooling over him like some sort of T-Bone steak. If the guy was who he thought he was, that meant that the black-haired boy had to save him.

He looked toward his partner, who was having a hard time in the battle due to not being able to attack Dagomon. Plus, the raccoon was the target of a few of the abomination's techniques.

The figure in the tank brought back memories.

###

_Ed woke up toward the end of the flight as he heard the announcement that they were landing overhead in Spanish. He took a deep breath and noticed his father next to him, already wide awake, confirming to the boy that it wasn't a dream. His father was busy reading a book, wearing reading glasses as he did so._

_ The black-haired boy wondered if he was going to get used to all this._

_ After landing, the duo got their luggage and headed out the door. "I have a friend that's going to pick us up. Turns out he's got a kid your age," Antonio informed his son excitedly, smiling as he did so. The two had been awful quiet since boarding the plane. Ed just wondered if they were going to actually do anything fun._

_ "What are we going to be up to today?" the heavy boy asked his father as they exited out into the warm air. It was nice not having to wear a coat in the middle of December since they were now in the Southern Hemisphere._

_ "Well, it turns out my brother and his kids arrived in town just last night and we're going to have a bit of a family get-together at my parents' house," Antonio explained. "Don't worry. If you just want to hang out on the sidelines, feel free. We'll stop by my house on the way. It's only walking distance from your grandparents' place."_

_ Ed didn't know what to do, really._

_ "Oh, hey, he's here already," the large man commented, pulling his luggage out of the building while his son did the same. "By the way, you're kind of a surprise for my parents."_

_ Ed looked at his dad in shock. "Wait, you mean you didn't tell them?"_

_ "Not quite yet… I'm not sure what their reaction will be to finding out that I had a son all these years without them knowing," the heavy man replied as the two of them edged toward the car in front. When they approached it, a tall man with light brown hair and blue eyes came out of the driver's seat. Since the man was obvious white and not Southern-European, Ed expected him to speak English. Instead, he spoke the local dialect of Spanish. The black-haired boy would eventually find out that there was a large minority of people of German descent in southern Chile._

_ Eventually the man named Rafael drove the two of them across the city to the eastern part of it, which was also the nicer part. After a few miles of driving they stopped in front of a small house._

_ "Alright, this is it," Antonio told his son. The two of them got out of the car and entered into the house. Rafael helped them bring their luggage inside._

_ "Well, it was very nice to meet you," Rafael told Ed in Spanish, shaking the boy's hand._

_ "Likewise," the black-haired boy responded with a smile._

_ "Well, I'm off," the brown-haired Chilean told the duo. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow."_

_ "Alright, thank you very much," Antonio said, shaking the man's hand before he walked out of the house and left. After shutting the door, the heavy man turned to his son. "So, I guess we'll just take showers and head to your grandparents' place."_

_ "Sounds like a good idea to me," the kid responded as he followed his father down the hall._

_ "By the way," the adult said, pointing to a room on his left as he walked down the hall, "This is your bathroom." Then he gestured to a room to his right that was right across from his own room. "And this is your bedroom."_

_ Ed glanced into his room and then toward his dad as the man walked into his personal bedroom, taking his shirt off as he walked to the left into his bathroom. The black-haired boy had to guess that his dad was going to take a shower first and he was going to take one second. Looking at his bedroom, Ed felt that it was a little plain. Then again, it was most likely a guest room before his father found out about him._

_ Bored, Ed headed back to the room where the front door was located which was more or less the living room, and sat down on the couch, noticing the blue creature that was asleep next to him out of the corner of his eye. He looked at it closely and realized immediately that it was a Veemon._

_ He had no idea how to react to that one. How was he supposed to know that his dad had a digimon living in his house?_

_ Still, the boy decided to wake the small dragon up with a bit of a nudge. After a couple seconds, the digimon woke up, groggily looking at Ed._

_ "What? Diego? What are you doing here?" the digimon asked, surprised and happy._

_ "Uh, I'm not Diego. The name's Ed," the black-haired boy responded, eliciting a bigger smile from the digimon._

_ "Ed! You mean you're my partner's son?" Ed sat there stupefied. "You mean my partner's here?"_

_ "He's in the shower right now," the chubby boy explained, but the digimon jumped up anyway._

_ "I gotta go see my partner. It's been a long two weeks without him!" the digimon exclaimed, climbing over the couch and heading down the hall. Ed followed the digimon into his dad's room, worried about what he might see. "Hey, Antonio! What's up?" the digimon called out as he headed into the master bathroom. Ed glanced over to see nothing but a red shower curtain. He was actually kind of surprised that his dad had left the bathroom open in the first place._

_ Almost immediately, Antonio pulled the curtain to the side a little bit, only showing his smiling face. "Hey, buddy! What are you doing here?" the curly-haired man asked._

_ "I was bored at your parents so I came here to take a nap. Then I woke up this morning," the little digimon explained, getting behind the curtains. Ed was somewhat disturbed by the notion although Veemon was like a little kid and probably had no sense of nudity._

_ Still, he decided to answer some questions. "So, you're a Tamer, huh, dad?"_

_ "Uh, yeah," the man answered from behind the curtain while smothering his arm with body wash. "I've been one since college, actually. You wouldn't believe the circumstances around the whole thing."_

_ Ed's next question was a simple one. "What were you doing during the D-Reaper?"_

_ Antonio paused for a second while he was in the middle of lathering the other arm. "Well… A friend of mine took me to the Digital World where we fought against some D-Reaper agents and a powerful and mad digimon." He hoped the explanation worked._

_ Ed simply nodded, even though his dad couldn't see him. "Uh, okay."_

_ "By the way, you might want to put on your trunks here," Antonio told his son. "Your grandma and grandpa have a pool."_

_ The heavy boy kept that in mind._

_###_

_ Later on they made their way to his grandparents' house on foot. That place was where he first met his aunt, uncle and three cousins. Well, one of his aunts and uncles, anyway. It turned out that his dad had nine siblings._

_ Antonio let himself into his parents' house, greeting his brother Geraldo with a wide smile. The man was also heavy with black hair, though his was straight and in the beginning stages of thinning. "Oh, and I have someone I'd like you to meet," he told the others._

_ "Let me guess, you brought back a wife from the United States that you didn't tell anyone about," Geraldo joked in a far deeper voice than his brother's. Antonio just laughed at that one._

_ "No, he brought back a long-lost son or daughter," their father joked, smiling. The man was a little bit shorter than his sons and was wearing thick glasses. Wrinkles creased his face; though he had aged fairly well since he was still in his late fifties._

_ Antonio laughed again. "You're right, actually. Ed! Come in here!"_

_ Ed was hovering aloof outside the door, away from where anyone could see him. The boy was nervous about meeting his extended family. He wondered if they would actually accept him or not, especially since he showed up so late and so long after the others._

_ His fears were dissipated somewhat when he felt his father's warm hand against his shirt. "Ed, come on in. Don't worry," the man said._

_ Then a shorter man that had to be his grandfather popped up out of nowhere and got in between them. "Hi, you must be Ed. You look a lot like your cousin Diego, you know," the old man greeted with a smile, holding his hand out to shake._

_ "Uh, hi," Ed responded, accepting the handshake. He was still wary._

_ "So, where are you from, kid? I'd assume the United States since that was where your daddy spent his wild years."_

_ Ed had to chuckle a bit from that. "Yeah, you're right. I was actually born in Lancaster, California."_

_ "Not too far from where your dad went to school or from where my family lives," Geraldo remarked. "By the way, interesting accent. Did you spend some time in Argentina?"_

_ The boy shook his head. "Nope, never been. My mom and step-dad are from Uruguay, though," Ed explained. He was starting to feel a bit more at home._

_ "Well, welcome to Chile. Hope you enjoy your stay," his grandfather said before heading back into the house. "Come on in! Family is always welcome!" _

_ Ed moved into the family house. After a few more introductions, he went into the kitchen, turned right into the dining room and then turned left past a hallway and into the living room. His grandparents' house was definitely quite large._

_ What caught his interest in the living room was the sight of two of his cousins, playing chess. They were both skinny boys. The younger one had brown hair and eyes that were a lighter shade of brown from the other one, an older boy with his hair slightly spiked forward in an odd style as well as a pair of circular sunglasses. He had to guess that they were siblings and that they weren't the one that his father said looked just like him._

_ Ed figured he'd move forward and check out the game. From the looks of it, the younger one held an advantage over the older boy. While the older boy took his turn, the younger one glanced over at Eduardo with a bit of surprise in his face, though that didn't last for long as Ed sat down to the left of him._

_ "So, having a good game?" Ed asked in English, almost by accident._

_ The brown-haired cousin smiled. "I'm beating my brother. That's always a good sign."_

_ The black-haired one raised an eyebrow. "I'll have the advantage in a couple of turns," he responded in a somewhat regal voice. Ed sensed a little bit of haughtiness coming from him._

_ "I'm sure…" the newcomer mumbled, chuckling slightly. From the looks of the board, the younger one had it in the bag._

_ "So, what's your name?" the younger boy asked, getting a look of confusion from his older brother._

_ "Fernando, why are you asking our brother that?" the older one inquired sternly, narrowing his eyes._

_ "Ed, Ed Guevara, Ed Diaz, whatever. Just call me Ed."_

_ "Okay, I'm Fernando and this is Ezequiel, or simply Ezekiel, like most English-speakers call him," Fernando responded. Ezekiel looked somewhat peeved._

_ "What is going on?" the skinny, dark-haired boy asked._

_ "Well, I figured out that he wasn't Diego because of the shirt. Our brother doesn't have any black shirts like that and he doesn't have any brown swim trunks. Plus, there's the black digivice on his waist. Our brother doesn't have a toy digivice. And finally the New Balance shoes are the wrong color for Diego." Ed was shocked by the younger boy's observations._

_ "I don't buy any of that, Fernando. In fact, I think that Diego's pulling a very elaborate prank on us," Ezekiel responded before glaring over at his cousin._

_ Ed chuckled. "Uh, no, I'm definitely not Diego."_

_"¿De dónde eres?" __Where are you from? Fernando inquired._

_"Soy estadounidense. ¿Y vos? ¿De dónde sos?" __I'm from the US. And you? Where are you from? Ed asked._

_ "De Oxnard, California," Fernando responded. "Your accent is Argentinean."_

_ "Uruguayan," Ed corrected._

_ "Plus, there's your pronoun usage," the brown-haired boy added. Ed wondered how some kid like this could know that much. He seemed way too smart for a kid his age._

_ "I was raised by my mom," the chubby boy responded. "And my step-dad. Both from Uruguay." _

_ Fernando nodded in understanding. "So, you're Antonio's son?"_

_ Ezekiel immediately got up, offended. "I can't believe you're buying into this? Antonio's a virgin."_

_ "Yeah, somehow I doubt it. He was married you know," Fernando responded with a smile. "I saw the rings and asked him about them a couple years ago."_

_ "No he wasn't," his brother countered._

_ "Yeah, I was." The group turned to see Antonio, who didn't like the subject of conversation that his nephews were on. "I see you met my son."_

_ "I guessed that he was yours because you were out of town for the past couple of weeks and that was the only reason for you to go to the US that made sense other than vacations," Fernando explained some more._

_ "Yeah, that's what I was there for. Say, where is Diego?" Antonio inquired before noticing the black-haired boy stagger down the hall groggily with bed-head, equally as heavy as his cousin. He was somewhat surprised by the sight of Ed, but he regained his composure._

_ "Hey, the name's Diego," he introduced, shaking Ed's hand._

_ "Ed," his cousin responded, smiling._

_ "Wow, you look like my lost twin or something," the sleepy boy joked. "I see you met my younger brothers."_

_ Ezekiel stood there shocked before falling back, fainting. It helped that the bedhead separated the looks of the two boys, but he didn't like being proved wrong._

###  
"I'll go," Ed told the others. Tadashi looked at him with a bit of shock.

"Wait, didn't you say that it was too dangerous just a second ago," the blond asked him.

"Yeah, maybe, but Guepardomon's not really doing anything right now, so he can help me." Surely enough, the digimon were having a hard time hitting Dagomon because of his high defense using corrupting water. Already, there were grey blotches appearing on the digimons' skin and fur in places. They couldn't let this battle last much longer or else they would most likely turn into Deep Ones.

"Remember, don't touch the guy, okay?" Tadashi warned him. He was surprised that he was warning the son of the person he considered an enemy. Maybe he could get past that.

"He's not me. He's my cousin," Ed responded. "Guepardomon! Give me some cover!"

The brown raccoon headed straight for his partner as the pudgy boy ran along the wall. Every so often, he would have to dodge jets of fast-moving water which would splash onto him. So far, he didn't notice any grey blotches on his skin like with the digimon, but he refused to think that long-term exposure was a good idea. At the same time, the four Ultimate digimon were busy keeping Dagomon busy so that he didn't notice Ed moving behind his back.

"Spider Shooter!" Infermon yelled out, unleashing red laser beams from his mouth.

"Crimson Beast-King Wave!" Flaremon attacked.

"Acid Ink!" Calmaramon shouted.

The three attacks continued to get blocked by the enemy digimon's control of water.

"My turn. Thousand Whips!" Dagomon unleashed his tentacles, having them go straight for Flaremon who felt like he was getting lashed all over his body. It was agonizingly painful.

At the same time, Tadashi felt it himself. _What the…? That never happened before!_ Then he realized that he was developing a closer bond with his partner much like Takato's team during the Deva battles. Such a thing could help them.

"Flaremon! Get him!" Tadashi ordered before yelling out, much like Takato in the battle against Vikaralamon.

"Crimson Beast King Wave!" both Tamer and Digimon called out in unison. This time, when Dagomon shot out the black water to defend himself, the jet turned to mist, filling up the room with water vapor.

_Impossible, _Dagomon thought, _the corrupting agent only works in liquid water, not vapor!_

Ed continued to make his way through the hot mist, heading straight for the stasis chamber that contained his cousin. The whole situation reminded him of sitting in the steam room at the gym with his dad after working out.

_Just a little more…_ The humidity was getting almost overwhelming. He wasn't about to give up. _This is for my cousin. Then there's my dad. There's no way I'm going to lose today. There's no way I'm not going to see him after this._

He finally reached the glass container. Now he had to find a way to break it open without injuring his cousin and without alerting Dagomon to his presence. As it was, the abomination was probably about to figure out that he had one less opponent going against him.

His partner was one step ahead of him. The digimon clawed along the sides of the stasis chamber, causing the yellow liquid inside to spill out slowly. Then the glass came off and his partner held onto it as Ed caught his cousin, letting the equally chubby boy down so that he was sitting down against the wall. Guepardomon walked over to the other chamber, the one with Kari inside of it, and did the same. Ed caught her as well, though his focus was still on the alternate-reality counterpart of his cousin.

Then a spurt of water came up out of the slotted ground, giving him an uppercut.

"You think I didn't notice you, boy?" Dagomon asked, fury in his eyes.

Ed got up sore. There was no way that he was going to let this evil digimon actually get away with all this.

"You look the same as the other kid that I kidnapped. Two children of light, one boy and one girl. I wouldn't say that you're the same person as the boy, but you look uncanny." The abomination smiled. There was a thick wall of water behind him, protecting him from the attacks of Ed's friends. "You know, I first defeated the Digidestined of my world shortly after they all reached Champion. I sent a squad of Ultimate-level digimon made from my Deep Ones. They are quite versatile, you know?"

Ed laughed before walking over to his cousin, who was starting to mumble a little bit. "They're also used to make Control Spires, aren't they?" the black-haired boy inquired.

"You are correct," Dagomon responded, grinning. "A smart boy. It's interesting that as soon as your father found out that you had a digivice, he delayed you in becoming a Tamer. Don't you know why?"

"Of course. It's was because my crest was Desire and because the digimon I designed was too volatile. Funny how you fear that."

"No, I don't. And it's no longer your strongest trait. If it were, I could have you join my side since it's a corrupted crest. Unfortunately, you purified it."

_Desire, purified…_ The truth of the matter was that his crest was one of the reasons he was afraid of digivolving to the Ultimate Level. Now that he realized what the abomination meant…

"So, now, I'm going to kill you. Or… Maybe I should kill your cousin first. After all, he didn't really master his crest of light before I defeated his team." Dagomon smiled underneath the tentacles.

Ed wouldn't allow that to happen.

"Leave him alone! Don't mess with my family, Dagomon," the boy snarled.

"Ed, keep your anger under control," his partner advised.

The black-haired boy nodded. He was going to defeat this digimon, but only because it was necessary. There was no way he was going to allow this enemy to blight the worlds any more than he already had.

He thought about his father and how he wanted to see him again.

He thought about his friends Matthias and Gustavo or Gus and how he wished they could all be together, hanging out.

He remembered his cousins Ezekiel and Fernando as well as all the other kids in his massive extended family. Then he glanced over at his unconscious identical cousin, Diego. There was no way that he would let this abomination turn him into a tool for breeding or something equally twisted.

He glanced over at Kari. There was no way she deserved the fate that Dagomon had in store for her. No way…

_And the greatest of these is love…_ The end of a scripture floated through the pudgy boy's mind and his digivice had the crest's symbol come across its glowing red screen.

And then it exploded.

**SUPER DIGIVOLUTION_**

"Guepardomon digivolve to…!" The new form had massive amounts of blue armor appear all over its body and limbs along with a glowing, light blue generator in the middle of the chest. Also, there were jet wings on his back as well as a jetpack that would allow travel at astonishingly high speeds. In addition, there were gloves that could extend claws of pure energy on the humanoid raccoon's hands.

"… MachGuepardomon!"

"MachGuepardomon…" Diego mumbled before opening his eyes widely. Right in front of him was someone who looked just like him, holding out his digivice. He got up weakly. Being in that stasis chamber hasn't helped with his muscle mass and bone density. "No way…"

He looked to his right to see a Japanese girl that he didn't know looking with similar amazement.

Dagomon was also shocked. Unfortunately for the abomination, he let his guard down causing the wall of water to come down and giving the digimon behind him the opportunity to attack him.

"Burning Beast King Fist!" Flaremon yelled, nailing the abomination in the back, singeing it. "You know, I've always like a little calamari."

Dagomon glared at him. "There's no way that I'm going to lose here, you imbeciles!" he yelled out.

###

A/N: Yeah, sorry for those of you who didn't want a chapter with lots of flashbacks… It kind of came out that way on accident. Also, I was intending to have them defeat Dagomon here, but unfortunately, this chapter was getting just a little too long and so I split that off into Chapter 25: Fallen Empires (working title).


	25. Fallen Empires

Chapter 25: Fallen Empires

###

Disclaimer: No tengo los derechos a la serie de televisión, Digimon.

###

When Davis got up, the battle going on over head was still raging and it seemed like the girls were having a far harder time than they should have, though since one of their partner digimon was a rookie at the moment, that may have been the reason why.

Still, the boy had no idea what was going on or where he was. Then he noticed all the others that were lying around.

"Oh, man! What the heck happened?" he asked no one in particular.

"Hey, Davis! I'm glad you're okay!" the brown-haired gogglehead looked over at his partner.

"Veemon! How I am glad to see you!" he exclaimed, grabbing onto the digimon.

That was when he noticed the Deep One headed straight for him. He checked his belt. There was no digivice. He checked his pockets. No D-Terminal either.

"Oh, man!" Davis exclaimed as the Deep One headed straight for him, its arm changing into a blade as it inched toward him.

"Davis! No!" Veemon got in between the two of them.

The fact was that Davis still hadn't digivolved Veemon to the Champion level yet. At the same time, he hadn't really seen a need to do so since he had the Digi-egg of Miracles with him anyway and he was going to use that against Dagomon. Unfortunately, plans changed and they ended up getting ambushed by thousands of those creepy abominations as soon as they made it into the Dark World to rescue Kari, meaning that he couldn't execute his plan like he wanted to.

And now he didn't even have his digivice.

Still, he was in danger. So he shielded himself, not knowing that the very fact that he was in danger would cause his partner to digivolve.

"Veemon digivolve to…! ExVeemon!"

The boy glanced up from behind his arms to see a far larger version of his partner that had wings too. In fact, he was almost too big for the room they were in. "V-Laser!" the digimon shouted, hitting the enemy digimon against the door, knocking it out. Cutemon immediately went toward it and used her healing powers on it, causing it to morph into Angemon before devolving into Patamon.

The implications were disturbing. "That's TK's Patamon… Does that mean that all the digimon were…?" Davis couldn't finish his sentence.

"Unfortunately, yeah," the unknown brunette that was Cutemon's partner responded. "By the way, that was a good save back there." She smiled at him. In some ways she reminded him of Kari, but American… Or something.

"Uh, thanks," Davis responded.

"Hey, Abby, come check this out!" Cutemon called out, motioning for her partner to come over. The brown-haired girl complied.

"Hey, Davis, do you know what the heck happened?" TK asked from behind.

"Yeah, seriously! Why am I all wet?" Yolei inquired, squeezing the water out of her purple hair.

"Not to mention pruny," Cody remarked, looking at his hands.

"You're not going to believe it, guys, we got beaten and taken here by Dagomon while our partners were turned into those freaky fish things that are his slaves," Davis explained, much to the shock of the others. Also, the American team was starting to move, though they were nowhere near consciousness. If they didn't regain consciousness in a couple minutes,

Davis decided to go see what Abby was looking at. There was some sort of hole in the wall where the Deep One that turned out to be Angemon hit and beyond that was simply darkness.

"Hey, Davis, do you think that you can blow a bigger hole, like near the center?" the brown-haired girl requested. He wondered how the girl knew his name.

"There seems to be something on the other side," Cutemon explained.

The brown-haired boy figured that it wouldn't hurt.

"Are you sure that's a good idea? This place seems pretty multi-dimensional," a blonde-haired girl with pig-tails inquired.

"Ayaka, don't you want to be at least a little adventurous?" Abby teased, smiling.

"Okay, ExVeemon, blow a hole in that wall!"

"V-Laser!" the digimon shouted, causing a few cracks to appear in the wall. The digimon attacked again, causing the wall to crumble.

The five Japanese kids and the lone conscious American looked out of the hole into the void, the only thing of note visible being the purple sphere in the middle as well as a few unconnected floating structures in the distance. "Whoa, that's pretty trippy," Davis commented.

"Wait, you mean we're floating in the middle of nowhere?" Yolei asked, incredulous.

"That doesn't make any sense," Cody remarked, scratching his chin.

"I reckon these doors lead somewhere," Armadillomon commented.

They group looked at the door that led away from Dagomon's chambers and saw that it was opened. And a pair of WeepingAngemon was standing right there. Worse was that the lights in the golden room were dimming at random intervals, causing the angels to change positions randomly.

"Oh no," Ayaka said. "Sanzomon, you think you can take them?"

"I'm not sure. After all that healing…"

"Let me do this," TK said, motioning for his partner to come with him. He wasn't sure how Patamon was going to fare against these two Ultimates, but he was going to try. Then he realized that he didn't have his digivice with him. _Great… But I don't need that for digivolution. Not really._

A green glow appeared on his chest. "Patamon, are you ready?"

"I'm aching a bit, but I'll be alright." Then he digivolved as a green glow came from TK's chest. "Patamon digivolve to… MagnaAngemon!"

"What? He can reach Ultimate?" Davis asked, shocked.

"Don't you remember when they explained their journey three years ago?" Yolei asked, elbowing him.

"Yeah? But… What about the digivices?" the brown-haired guy asked.

"You don't need them to digivolve. They only make it easier," TK explained.

Davis still wished that he had his and that he could help in this battle, even as MagnaAngemon struck the first of the two WeepingAngemon with the sword on his right wrist.

_Don't give up, man! You can reach Ultimate! Heck, you actually activated the digi-egg of Miracles when you fought Ken. That has to mean something. _Davis refused to give up. That was one of his strengths. _Miracles… Even if I needed a miracle, which I might, I wouldn't give in against these enemies._

Then, suddenly, a sphere of light appeared in front of him and a new digivice appeared, looking like a cell-phone of sorts that flipped two ways. It was colored blue and white and had three white buttons below the screen.

"You know what I think that thing is?" Abby asked, indicating the purple sphere. "That's the source of Dagomon's power. And then these rooms are all connected by portal somehow. That's the reason why this place's rooms are all over the place instead of leading to one another in a logical pattern."

Davis knew that he had to destroy it. He held out his new digivice and used his belief in himself to digivolve his partner to the next level.

It shined in gold, something that caused the purple sphere, along with the rest of the fortress, to shake.

"ExVeemon digivolve to…" The new form was heavily armored with a grey anchor-like pike on the end of its tail. "… Arresterdramon!"

The dragon attempted to strike the purple sphere of darkness with his tail, but it didn't do anything and it seemed to lack the luster it had before striking it.

Davis had to do something to help. "Hey, Arresterdramon, why don't you go help MagnaAngemon?" he suggested and the dragon flew up into the already-cramped room, trying to be careful not to step on anybody unconscious. That was about the time that Sanzomon teleported the Dark Ocean Digidestined to the canyon where Tadashi's team had started.

Then the dragon rushed forward, striking the first WeepingAngemon with his tail and cracking it.

###

Meanwhile, the battle against Dagomon was going better than ever, even though everyone was starting to feel more and more exhausted. Still, they were definitely able to take on this enemy far easier than before thanks to Tadashi's discovery of fueling their partners with their emotions.

"Crimson Beast King Wave!" the blond shouted along with his partner. The two of them unleashed their attack at once, blowing through Dagomon's water field and even landing a shot on the enemy digimon himself.

Then Miki and Calamaramon unleashed an attack as well. "Titanic Tempest!" she yelled out, unleashing the attack straight into the abomination's torso, heavily damaging him further.

"Network Grenade!" Gunter yelled along with Infermon, striking the Undersea Master and knocking him back near Ed and the two captives.

"Axion Beam!" MachGuepardomon shouted, unleashing a massive laser beam from the glowing disk on his chest.

Then he felt something else coming from behind. Looking in that direction, he saw that Kari had awakened.

The brunette girl realized that something was seriously wrong when she woke up and found herself surrounded by numerous digidestined that she had never seen before. She realized that she must have been kidnapped and taken to the Dark Ocean by Dagomon to be his bride. The very thought made her shudder until she realized that her friends had to have come to save her.

She also realized that they had failed.

The thought made the sense of justice within her light up, causing her to do the same. All Dagomon could do was stare at the light, the wonderful light that he wanted for himself since he was so far from it.

The girl's eyes glowed as well and she moved forward to face her captor.

Her partner, Gatomon, also felt it from the other room even as MagnaAngemon and Arresterdramon did battle with the four WeepingAngemon, attempting to destroy them even as they caused the lights to flicker on and off in the room. The cat moved toward the door to Dagomon's chambers and it opened.

And on the other side came Angewomon.

"Dagomon, you have committed many sins in your lifetime, and you must atone for them," the angel told the abomination, who was still fixated by Kari's light.

"What you did to me, to my friends, is something you must pay for," Kari told him.

"And what you did to my cousin and his friends," Eduardo added, his crest shining from his digivice as well. "I know that I'm supposed to love my enemies, but what you did was utterly wrong. The same with what you were going to do."

"Axion Cannon!" the black-haired boy yelled out with his partner, causing the yellow object on the center of the digimon's chest to shoot out a massive amount of energy.

"Celestial Arrow!" Angewomon yelled, shooting a beam of pink energy at her enemy.

The two attacks collided with the abomination, causing him to explode into data.

"Well, the building hasn't started collapsing yet," Tadashi commented.

"Uh, it will if you keep saying that," Miki told him point blank with her arms folded.

"Guys, I think the other guys are fighting those creepy WeepingAngemon," Gunter informed the group and the digimon all moved forward to help their allies.

Kari moved forward weakly, though Diego seemed to be worse off, causing Ed to help him.

"Who are you? You look just like me?" Ed's cousin inquired.

"I'm your cousin from a parallel universe, believe it or not," the pudgy boy told him, helping him across Dagomon's innermost sanctum.

"Very funny? And you're Antonio's son, I take it?" Diego joked.

"You guessed right. My dad married some chick during college, which I think you know about," Ed responded, causing a bit of confusion in his cousin.

"No he didn't," the identical-looking boy objected.

Ed nodded. "Maybe not in your world. Why do I get the feeling my universe is the only one I exist in?"

"Parallel universes? Don't tell me there's an infinite number of them that branch off from each other based on whatever decision you make like choosing strawberry jelly for your bagel instead of blackberry or something stupid like that."

"From what I know, there's only a couple dozen. From the looks of the dimensional corridor, there are six main ones and a few more that branched off from those somehow," Ed explained.

"So, what caused them? Were they always there?" Diego inquired as Ed led him into the other room. The fight with the four WeepingAngemon ended when MagnaAngemon used his gate of destiny on them and Arresterdramon and the other Ultimates except Sanzomon knocked them into it. The heavy boy let his cousin down onto the ground.

"Hey, where's the rest of my team?" Diego asked.

"I teleported them to the canyon where we started out in this world," Sanzomon explained.

"By the way, guys, you better come look at this," Ayaka said, standing on the edge of the break in the wall on the side of the stasis room.

What everyone saw surprised them. "This is where Dagomon gets his power," Tadashi guessed. "Did you guys try to destroy it or something?"

"When Arresterdramon tried to attack it, his tail started to change color," Davis explained.

"Maybe we should attack it from far away, then," Gunter suggested.

"Dude, I tried that too. It didn't do anything," Davis responded.

"It's darkness, so we should fight it with light," Kari stated before glancing over at MagnaAngemon and Angewomon.

TK nodded. "Okay, guys, let's do this," he ordered the angels.

"How about Sanzomon?" Ayaka suggested. "Technically she's a light type too, right?"

"That sounds like a good idea. Go ahead," TK told her, gesturing for Sanzomon to join the two angels.

At once, they attacked.

"Celestial Arrow!"

"Excalibur!"

"Kochou Mu-kyou!"

The three attacks struck the sphere of darkness, cracking it. The three repeated their attack, causing more fissures across the surface until a tenebrous fluid oozed out of the cracks, falling into the bottom before evaporating. Small bits of lightning crawled across the surface of the sphere as it broke apart before disintegrating into thousands of digital particles.

Then the shaking began.

"Great, this place is breaking apart!" Davis complained, grabbing onto a nearby pillar.

"Somehow I knew this was going to happen!" Tadashi exclaimed.

"Sanzomon, can't you teleport us?" Ayaka asked her partner. The Monk made a hand sign with her fingers and the entire group was gone from the collapsing castle.

###

Throughout the city of R'lyeh, Deep Ones could see their lord's castle collapse into a mountain of rubble before water started to seep out of the bottom. Numerous cracks formed across the city until they reached the glass dome surrounding it.

Then the water started gushing in, filling the city with the corrupt liquid and condemning it to an even quicker death as it was inundated. Eventually, the city itself collapsed and imploded under the water, its inhabitants lost to the stormy seas.

###

"Any idea where Diego went?" Sergio asked his team, trying to figure out what happened to the rest. The group was regrouping in the canyon they had woken up in, trying to make sense of everything.

The blond, Andrew, simply gave a long shrug. The brown-haired guy, Broc, spoke in his place, his voice deep and somewhat nasal. "You know, I have no idea."

"Can't we get a move on or something?" David Symanski asked, hating that they were just standing around. "First we get attacked and then we wake up here. We should be taking advantage of that, guys."

The skinny black-haired guy, Alan, spoke this time. His accent was vaguely Italian and his voice was somewhat soft. "We need to stick together if we're going to get out of this world," he told the brown-haired guy.

"Right, and I don't suppose you have a way of beating that Dagomon guy who attacked us with his stupid army, huh?" David objected. "Or of finding Diego, 'cause I can't think of any."

"Hey, didn't that one guy say something about reaching something called the Ultimate Level?" The group turned to look at Andrew. He definitely didn't talk a lot and had a tendency to put his foot in his mouth at times, but something about what he said was right.

"Oh yeah, you mean that message that we got on our digivices after we all reached Champion?" Broc asked. "Okay, anybody have theirs?"

All he got was a shaking of heads. It was as if their digivices had gone missing.

A few seconds later, their partners came back with food. "Oh, hey, guys!" Dracomon exclaimed, running up to Andrew. "You're awake!"

"Yeah, we're so happy you're all alright!" a Gumdramon exclaimed, wandering toward his partner, Broc.

"Now, hold on a minute. You guys have any idea what happened?" the brown-haired, rosy-cheeked boy asked.

"We got beat by Dagomon," Solarmon, Sergio's partner explained. "Then these guys came and rescued us."  
"Yeah, we were turned into freaky fish-things and forced to do whatever Dagomon wanted us to do," Gumdramon said.

"And you guys were all put in liquid jars and put on display like trophies," Candlemon, Alan's partner, explained.

The group stood there quietly for a few seconds, trying to digest what had happened. It was about then that Alan noticed Koemon standing with Diego's partner, Gaomon. "Gaomon, did you see Diego anywhere?"

The dog shook his head. "I have no idea where my master is."

"And what about the guys that booted us out of Dagomon's control?" Broc inquired, grimacing.

"They said that they'd be here when they were done, supposedly," Gaomon told them.

With that, the team ate, hoping that none of Dagomon's horrors went after them while they did so. They were all famished, so the food disappeared rather quickly. It turned out that there was a forest nearby, but it was in the opposite direction of R'lyeh, so the Tamers that saved them couldn't go through it.

Still, they had a lot on their minds, even as they dined. They need to find a way back to their world and they needed new Digivices since it seemed that theirs were destroyed.

They missed their families and had no idea how long they had been gone. And their friends, too. They had no idea why they were chosen of all people for this task, but they wanted it to be over with.

A few minutes into their meal, Sanzomon appeared with everyone that helped save them. From the looks of it, the group consisted of a large number of Asians, a muscular brown-haired guy, a cute girl and two Diegos.

"Okay, can anybody tell me what the heck is going on?" David asked the group, grimacing.

"We just saved your butts," Tadashi replied, heading toward the team.

"Hey, so, how long were you guys in Dagomon's possession, anyway?" Davis asked, moving with Tadashi.

The team looked at each other with a bit of confusion.

"It's July 26, 2002, if you're wondering," Tadashi said.

The team's look changed to one of horror. "Wait, you mean we've been here for… eight months?" Broc said.

"Eight months? That's crazy!" Broc exclaimed.

"How do we get home?" Alan inquired, not knowing what to expect. Davis looked at the others that had just arrived with Sanzomon, who was now back to being Salamon.

"We're all from other universes," Tadashi explained. "We can get back home using the dimensional corridor, but I don't know exactly how to get you guys back to your world."

"Parallel universes? Come on!" David Symanski exclaimed, not believing the group in front of them.

"Does your world have a Digimon TV show?" Ayaka asked the group, getting shaking heads.

"Well, we've got Pokémon, but other than that…" Broc replied.

"Wait, there's a Digimon TV show in your world?" Davis inquired of Tadashi and the others.

"Uh, yeah, there's three seasons in our world," Tadashi explained. "One of them is about your adventures, but you never went here. You guys beat the Digimon Emperor, right?"

"Heck yeah! That was a couple months ago!" DemiVeemon exclaimed.

"Hey, you and me look an awful lot alike," Gumdramon told the blue dragon.

"Uh, isn't your in-training form DemiVeemon or something?" Broc asked his partner.

"Oh yeah, now that makes sense!"

"What about Arukenimon and Mummymon?" Ayaka inquired, getting a shaking of heads from Davis' team.

"Never even heard of them," Yolei said. "Are they dangerous?"

"Well, Arukenimon has the power to activate control spires and turn them into digimon," Diego explained.

"Should we spoil the plot for them?" Abby asked.

"It's already off the rails, man," Gunter remarked, relaxing on the ground. "I mean, since when could Davis reach Ultimate on his own? And weren't the crests all used to heal the digital world or something like that?"

"That didn't happen," TK responded, wondering where anybody would get that idea from.

Gunter sat up. "So, you didn't go to the digital world after defeating Diaboromon?"

TK shook his head.

"So, now what do we do?" Sergio asked the rest of the group, who fixated on him.

"We should all get to the Dimensional Corridor as soon as possible," Tadashi told the group. "It won't take you guys back to the real world, but at least the rest of us will get back home."

"And how do we do that?" Broc inquired, clenching his teeth.

"Well, uh… Can't you guys digivolve or something?" the blond asked.

"Dagomon took away our digivices," Sergio explained. The dark-skinned boy had no idea what to do exactly.

"That freak ambushed us with a bunch of Ultimates," Broc added. "We didn't stand a chance."

"I got mine back. Or at least I got a new one," Davis told the group.

"How?" Alan asked.

"Uh… I guess I just wished for it really hard or something," Davis explained. "Man, that was when I digivolved Veemon to Arresterdramon."

Just then, a digivice appeared in the air above Andrew. The blond American grabbed it. It was the same color as his old one and was the same peculiar model that Davis' new one was. "Well, what do you know, it worked," he said simply, before opening it like one would a cell-phone.

"Quiet guy, isn't he?" Ed inquired.

"Got it," Andrew said, seemingly out of the blue. The digivice then emitted a hologram of a blue humanoid digimon with yellow eyes. The digimon had a pair of ears that came from the head like a triangle, much like Shoutmon or OmegaShoutmon but far shorter. The digimon was also emitting a blue glow, showing that he was incredibly powerful.

"If you've received this message, your entire team has successfully reached the Champion stage," the blue figure remarked. "By now you have surely encountered a number of enemy digimon. Don't be alarmed, you _will _defeat them. My name is InfinityShoutmon and I'm sure you're wondering why you were brought here or why I chose you. Ultimately, it was because you were needed. I came to the rulers of the digital world, the Three Celestials: Shakamon, Magnadramon and ClavisAngemon and told them of a great evil that would originate in this world: Dagomon. They scoffed at the concept of a mere Ultimate becoming a major threat to the digital world, but I warned them that you would eventually be needed in case his armies got too big, so I gave them the D-Max digivice just in case, each of them connected to one of you so that they'd signal onto you and then open a portal to bring every one of you here. After the defeat of Dagomon, you'll all be able to get back home with the help of the celestials.

"Your next step will be to digivolve to Ultimate using the crests that are built into the D-Max's. When you reach that stage, I'll give you another message. Until then, good-bye and I wish you the best for your journey."

The hologram then disappeared.

"InfinityShoutmon?" Ed muttered.

"What's up, Diego?" Broc inquired, not knowing that he wasn't talking to his teammate.

"That's the Mega form of Shoutmon, the partner digimon of a friend of my dad's," he explained, ignoring that the rosy-cheeked boy got him and his cousin mixed up like everyone else.

"Mr. Immortal?" Gunter asked, getting a nod from Ed.

"Mr. Immortal? Who the heck is that?" Tadashi asked, confused.

"He was said to be the most powerful Tamer on the planet until his partner got defeated during the D-Reaper war," the large German explained. "I met him once. Don't know much about him or how long he's been at it."

"He's a friend of my dad's and he's over 4000 years old," Ed said, getting astonished looks from the rest.

"Yeah, right! Like anybody could live that long," Miki objected.

"Can't we just get moving?" Tadashi asked the massive group. "Takato and the others are probably in the middle of beating that Digimon Emperor in the world that they're in."

Everyone agreed that the sooner they got going, the better. "Okay, man, we'll go," Sergio said, smiling, before willing his digivice back into existence

###

The Emperor David Symanski decided to visit the mysterious man using a hologram. "Oh, you actually came," the scientist said. "I'm honored."

David nearly rolled his eyes. Then he noticed the scientist kick a rock straight into his hologram, passing through harmlessly. The brown-haired boy really did roll his eyes then. "What do you want?" he asked.

"Well, I thought we'd have a nice, civilized discussion, maybe with a cup of tea," the scientist said, pulling out his giant digivice and causing an oak table to materialize along with a couple of chairs. The Asian man pulled out one of the chairs and sat down in it. "Come on, you know you want to."

"And why should I do that? Chances are you'll just try to kill me or something? Who the heck are you, anyway?" David scowled at the man in front of him.

"Because, if you don't, everyone inside that little castle of yours will die," the man answered the first question, giving David a mad look. "And if you're wondering, my name is Akihiro Kurata, and I come from a parallel universe with something that may interest you."

"A parallel universe?" Symanski responded. He had heard about that from Taizou and the others but didn't take it seriously.

"I'll show you someone I'd like you to meet if you just come and visit." Then Kurata smiled. "If not, then I'll just have to do this the hard way, killing everyone inside your precious little castle. You don't want their blood on your hands, do you, Emperor?"

"You can't digivolve inside an area under my control," the Emperor responded.

"Oh, but I can. You know what Armor Digivolution and Biomerge Digivolution have in common? They can both be performed inside an area with a control spire. This is due to them being similar forms of digivolution that employ outside sources to boost a partner digimon to a higher level. To illustrate…" Kurata moved forward and into an area that was governed by a control spire that he didn't destroy. "Biomerge activate!"

Suddenly, he was no longer there. In place of him was the purple, armored monstrosity that he used to kill a team of Tamers personally. "This is my greatest creation, Gizumon BT. I suppose you like it. He's actually stronger than most Megas." The mad scientist spoke all this with twisted glee. Then he noticed something on his sensors. "Oops, it looks like you're getting weaker!"

David gave him an icy glare before deactivating the hologram. That was when he noticed an alert on his power generator saying that it was losing power. He wondered how that could possibly happen. It had gone down to 98% before he decided what to do. Then he went downstairs into the dungeon and activated a device that would mask the digivice signals of everyone down there. "What's going on?" Taizou asked, getting up and holding onto the bars that separated him from freedom.

"Our little friend, Kurata, basically threatened to kill each and every one of you if I don't meet with him," David replied. "You'll be safe down here. Don't worry; I won't put your partners in any danger either. I'm just going to take an extra Blimpmon that I have lying around instead of Zeppelinmon."

"Wait, so you're just going to leave us here while you're screwing over the Digital World?" Yuji asked, confused.

"That's not what's happening. In a few minutes, I'm no longer even going to be Emperor since the source that I get my power is running out." David blamed it on Kurata, but he had a feeling that the madman wasn't even behind this. He merely had impeccable timing.

"All Tamers working for me must come down to the dungeon personally. All digimon must evacuate immediately and head straight for the outer edges of imperial territory," David spoke into the microphone. He had to work fast, even going as far as leaving his own partner, Koemon, behind. It was now or never.

A few minutes later, he headed to his hangar clear on the other side of that stolen castle where Blimpmon was. The power level for the generator was down to 62% by that point. Pretty soon, he wouldn't be able to control Ultimates. In the meantime, he had to meet with Kurata.

He should have struck earlier. But even then, there was a massive chance that Kurata would be able to defeat him outright.

So he moved on inside Blimpmon. He hoped that he would last long enough without the digimon slipping out from under his control. From the looks of the sun in the sky, it was about three hours until sunset. He hoped that he would be able to get out of this unscathed and head straight home, but somehow he knew that this was his last hurrah.

The generator level was down to 14% when Blimpmon landed a mere 100 meters from Kurata's location. Immediately, David disembarked and ordered Blimpmon to take off and go as far away from there as possible. Then he glanced at his digivice's info.

9%

He moved forward, ready to face Kurata. He knew he wouldn't have been able to win, even with his partner. Biomerge Digivolution wasn't a feature of the D-3 digivice and he had checked already when he attempted to hack it personally.

6%

He stopped about ten feet from the mad scientist. "So, how do you like my haircut?" the madman asked.

"I haven't seen you without it, so I have no opinion. Now, what do you want to know?" Symanski just wanted to get this over with.

Just then, a number of tentacles wrapped themselves around the deposed emperor's limbs, holding his arms upward. "How nice, you're sacrificing yourself for your friends. Or at least your slaves."

"Why do you want to kill me?" David asked, writhing in pain at his limbs being forcibly moved.

The madman then grabbed his digivice from out of his pocket. "I want to kill everyone that partners themselves with the abominations known as Digimon." Then he reached down and lifted up his shirt, revealing lines of blue all over his body. "You know where I got these scars?"

"I don't care," David told him. "Why are you doing this?"

"Once I had an enemy, a teenager who felt he could stand up to me. And what do you know? He did. In fact, had it not been for my last space-time oscillation bomb, I would have died." Kurata smiled widely, pulling out a knife and holding it for some reason. "Instead, I found myself about five years in the past in a different human world."

Then he grabbed his digivice, pressing a few buttons. The next thing he knew, David was staring at himself, sitting down at the table that Kurata had so graciously set for him. "It's time you met yourself."

###

Tadashi and the others flew over the Dark Ocean inside of Blimpmon. Actually, there were a few others outside, flying, such as Davis and Broc, who were both on the back of ExVeemons. It turned out that the digimon had very similar digivolution lines.

He smiled, looking out the front window at the seas below and the skies above. The skies were starting to get less and less cloudy as sunlight started to pour through the gaps that appeared above. Also, the sea was starting to change from a dark grey to a dark blue. It would be awhile before the damage that Dagomon had caused to the environment of this world was reversed, though.

Still, he had something else that he had to do, even as he left the cockpit where Sergio and Andrew were talking along with Andrew's partner Dracomon.

It turned out that the quiet blond could get going on the right subject. Currently they were talking about some cartoon. Still, he was definitely not as social as Broc, who quite literally talked to everyone he came across.

So, Tadashi walked to the back where Diego, Eduardo and Alan were talking. It turned out that Alan was from Argentina and that he had only moved to the United States just a couple years earlier. That meant that they had at least a few things in common.

"The only time I actually when to Argentina was when my dad decided to go on a trip just over the border and take me along," Ed said. "We didn't go all the way to Buenos Aires, though."

"Yes, I understand that. Santiago's a bit far from the capital of Argentina," Alan responded.

"So, you know, your dad actually married someone in my timeline," Diego informed Ed.

"Yeah, who'd he marry? Actually, on second thought, it probably wouldn't matter," Ed said.

"Come on, aren't you curious?" Prokyomon asked.

"I am… a little." Ed was surprised to see Tadashi standing there and even more surprised to hear the blond say that. He smiled a little bit.

"So, what's up, Ted?" the half-Uruguayan tamer inquired.

"Ted?" Tadashi asked.

"Hey, I couldn't think of any other way of shrinking your name, man," Ed joked. "So, what's happening?"

"Ed and Ted… No, I'm not going to go by that," the blond said. "Can we talk in private?"

Ed glanced around. There weren't really any private spots to actually converse since the airship was so crowded. Still, he had an idea. "Come with me," he said. "You don't care if Prokyomon comes, do you?"

"I'm not bringing Coronamon, but sure," the blond said. He followed Ed up the hatchway and into Blimpmon's body.

"So, what do you want to talk to me about?" Ed asked, sitting down on a girder, not really knowing what to expect. Tadashi had treated him badly only the day before, so he was on guard. Still, he was ready to forgive him.

"Uh, listen, I'm sorry about what I said last night," Tadashi told the heavier boy.

Ed nodded. "What you said was pretty bad but I kind of expected it, I guess." After a brief pause, during which the dark-haired boy kept a neutral expression, he smiled. "Apology accepted." He then walked past Tadashi and patted him on the arm.

The blond was taken aback. "What? That's it?"

Ed turned toward Tadashi just as he was about to go down the hatch. "Yeah. Hey, we got along pretty well today, so I figured I'd forgive you. And you apologized."

Tadashi smiled at his friend and nodded.

Still, there was something that was bothering him. "Hey, you haven't talked to Abby since we left," he said. Ed came back up the hatch, somewhat embarrassed to talk about it.

"Uh, yeah, I don't know."

"She kissed you," the blond said.

Ed nodded. "Yeah, I don't know what to think of that. I… I just don't… I don't feel ready for a relationship or anything. And then there's how we're from different universes and everything."

"You can make it work," Tadashi told him.

"But here's the thing: it took work just to get to the digital world, much less the dimensional corridor. How often would be get to meet? And then there's the whole thing with our age. She's thirteen, I'm almost fourteen. How many people do you know have a relationship at that age that lasts?"

Tadashi paused for a second. "I don't know any. My parents met in high school, but they were both 17 and that wasn't a smooth ride for them. Heck, she basically ran off with him, screwing up her relationship with her parents."

"Yeah, exactly. And my dad doesn't exactly want me to date anyone," Ed responded.

"My parents too. My brother can't date until he graduates high school and believe me he's noticed the girls, not that they'd noticed him." Tadashi chuckled.

Ed nodded, getting up and sitting down. It was just as he was about to get comfortable with a conversation that they heard the intercom overhead speak. "Hey, everybody," Sergio greeted. "We're currently about to land at the dimensional corridor. Please get down into the cabin."

"So, I guess this means we're friends?" Ed asked.

"Yeah, we're friends."

###

After their goodbyes, Davis's team left for their world and Tadashi and the others left for World 6-1. It had turned out that the quarantine had been lifted just after Dagomon's defeat. Sergio's team had to continue on in their search for a way back to the real world, but they at least managed to say their goodbyes. Now they just had one last thing to do.

"So, you think those Celestials are still alive?" Sergio asked the rest of the group.

"Dude, I don't even know where to start looking," Broc responded. "And did you notice that all those other teams had girls on them? How come we didn't?"

"Maybe we can ask the Celestials when we get there," Andrew suggested. "If they're still alive."

"They better be," David Symanski commented. "By the way, you're not asking anybody to repeat themselves. What's going on?"

Andrew thought about it. "I guess that when Cutemon healed us, she took away my hearing problem."

"You had a hearing problem?" Broc asked, surprised.

The blond nodded. "Yeah. And now it's like I can hear everyone clearly. Weird, huh?" He smiled.

"So, let's get going," Sergio told the group, grinning widely. "Blimpmon can take us anywhere."

The dimensional corridor was located on an island. The world in front of them was definitely bleak. "So, you think there are any Digimon left in this place?" Broc asked.

"We'll find out!" Alan exclaimed, boarding the airship with the others.

Diego was the last to board. He looked out at the corridor, wondering what his cousin was going to be up to. From what he heard about the Digimon Queen, he had a lot to deal with. He smiled before heading into the airship and the hatch was closed.

A brave new world was ahead of them, ready to be explored.

###  
Tadashi and the others made it to World 6-1 in once piece. Unfortunately, they found themselves in the middle of a desert. "So, any sign of their digivice signals?" he asked.

"I found one. Anybody know who the heck Samuel Krenzel is?" Ayaka inquired.

"Doesn't ring a bell," Ed responded.

"I met a Joey Krenzel, but he's a bit of a jerk," Gunter answered. "I wonder if they're related."

"This guy must be the Digimon Emperor. I wonder what he looks like," Miki said, envisioning a pale, skinny and spiky-haired blond man with icy blue eyes. "Maybe he's as hot as that Alan guy was."

"So, we head that way to get answers?" Tadashi asked the group.

"What else can we do?" Ayaka asked.

"That won't be necessary," the group heard a voice say from behind them. Turning, they saw a woman with purple armor and a helmet that resembled a fox. Apparently she had teleported there just a couple seconds earlier, if the lack of footprints behind her were any indication.

"Kuzuhamon, Mega Level," Ayaka read off her digivice before Tadashi cut her off.

"You… You're the one that kidnapped our friends!" the blond exclaimed.

"Your friends were necessary to preventing the Digimon Emperor from taking over this world," the Mega responded. "Please, let me explain."

The group listened as the digimon told the tale.

###

A/N: Well, that's it for the little excursion into the Dark Ocean.


	26. Four Hundred Years

Chapter 26: Four Hundred Years

###

Dislcaimer: Don't own Digimon.

###

She made her way through the barriers between the worlds, searching for someone that could fulfill the task set before her, an experienced team. She hoped that she could get back before the enemy got too powerful. For Kuzuhamon, her world meant everything, meaning that she'd do anything to save it.

So she slipped into the globe in the orbital digital world's sky, ready for the next step in her plan.

###

Takato hurried. He hated that he was running late today, especially since as far as he could tell, everyone was already at the emergence site and they were _still _dealing with whatever it was. It had to be strong if that was the case.

"What up, Chumley?" the goggle-headed boy heard. He looked to his side to see Kazu catching up with him.

"Hey, Kazu, how's it going?" he asked.

"Same old, same old. The new teacher's been assigning us with way too much homework," the visor-wearing boy responded. "Hey, Tadashi's going to be having a group over to watch a movie tonight. You want to come?"

"That sounds like fun? How about you, Guilmon? Want to come?" Takato asked his partner who was running right beside him.

"That sounds cool, Takato," the red dino responded.

"So, what movie are we watching?" the goggle-headed boy asked out of curiosity as they got to the digital field that encompassed the monkey bars in the middle.

"Tadashi hasn't decided yet," Guardromon indicated as the quartet jumped into the digital field.

As soon as he entered into it, Takato knew something was off. He immediately started feeling drowsy and almost instantly collapsed, barely noticing the purple figure in the middle of the digital field.

###

The next thing he remembered, Takato was waking up in the middle of a straw hut of sorts. He had no idea where he was. The inside of the hut was decorated with masks and boomerangs, and a Sepikmon noticed him stir. The masked digimon immediately ran out of the small building and a woman walked in, looking like Sakuyamon only purple.

_Okay, what the heck just happened?_ The brown-haired boy asked himself.

"Take it easy," the purple-clad shaman admonished him, using her hands to keep him from getting up too fast.

"Where am I?" he asked the woman.

"You're in another digital world. Don't worry, you're safe for now," Kuzuhamon said in as soothing a voice as she could muster.

Takato's eyes widened. "What are we doing here?" he asked in confusion.

"I brought you here," the purple digimon responded. "I needed your help."

"You kidnapped us, that's what!" Takato and Kuzuhamon turned to see an angry Rika, glaring at the shaman.

"I needed your help. Don't worry, it should only be for a few days," Kuzuhamon responded. "And besides, time passes faster here. Your families will barely notice your disappearance."

Rika cooled down a little bit, but she was still ticked at the Mega. Still, there wasn't much she could do at the moment, so she just figured she'd play along, get rid of whatever bad guy she was brought here for and get out. That is, unless Kuzuhamon was a bad guy instead.

Kidnapping was something that one just shouldn't do, no matter their intentions.

"So, where are the others?" Takato asked.

"They're slowly getting up," the red-head replied. "You think we should have a meeting about all this?"

"Yeah, that's a great idea. By the way, Kuzuhamon, what do we have to deal with, anyway?" Takato too found the situation suspicious, but he was willing to give the dark-haired digimon the benefit of the doubt.

"We have a threat that has been steadily growing bigger in the digital world. In fact, it has taken over most of this continent since I left to find you," the purple-clad digimon responded. "Like I say, time travels faster here." It was something that she didn't know when she first headed to their world; otherwise she would have hurried up far faster than she did.

In fact, she was starting to have her doubts about this plan working since the Emperor could control Megas now and controlled far more territory. He even controlled the area where the Dimensional Corridor was, so she couldn't go anywhere for reinforcements.

She wanted this to work, but she had to prepare for in case it didn't.

###  
"So, we just need to beat this Emperor dude. Piece of cake!" Kazu exclaimed, confident that they could do it.

"But if Kuzuhamon is telling the truth, the Emperor has Control Spires much like Ken," Henry objected.

"Oh, come on, just blow up a bunch of those stupid things and it'll all be over. Momentai!" Terriermon exclaimed, enthusiastic about finally having an actual enemy to take on instead of some wannabe.

"Terriermon, we don't know it will be. For all we know this guy's leagues ahead of Ken," the Chinese boy remarked.

"Still, the sooner we can get this over with, the sooner we leave," Rika told the group. "There's no way I'm staying around here much longer. I've had enough of other worlds the last time we were in the Digital World."

"I agree," Ryo concurred. "I'm done with these adventures and I'd rather be at home. I'm tired of having to be held back in school and I just want to have a normal life."

Takato nodded at that one. He was already starting to miss his family even though it hadn't been that long. "Okay, so all in favor of beating this guy as quickly as possible?"

Everyone raised their hands, wanting it so bad.

###

"So, where is the Emperor's base?" Rika asked Kuzuhamon as she, Takato, Ryo and Henry drew up plans to perform a surgical strike. Since the four of them were the only ones that could reach Mega, they decided to do it themselves while Kazu and Kenta held the fort.

The purple-clad Mega pointed to a location on the map in front of her. "Our intelligence has pointed to here as where the Emperor is living. Right now, we are here, relatively close to the border." She pointed at a location further to the south of the Emperor's territory.

"What about the local rulers of this world?" Henry asked. "What are they doing?"

"Unfortunately, the Olympus XII were either sealed away or enslaved by the Emperor," Kuzuhamon pointed out. "Either that, or they were deleted."

"Okay, so this should be simple," Rika commented.

"I don't know," Henry said. "There are the Control Spires to deal with."

"We'll just destroy every one we find along the way," the red-head responded. "Plus, we can all fly, right?"

"I can't," Takato responded.

"And neither can I," Ryo added.

"I can assist you in this," Kuzuhamon told the group. "Takato, are you aware that there is data inside of you that should allow a mode-change?"

"Uh, yeah, I did that before, actually," the goggle-head replied, smiling.

"Good," the purple-clad woman said before grabbing onto his partner's forehead.

"Takato, I feel funny," the red dinosaur told his partner.

"What are you doing?" Takato asked Kuzuhamon, slightly put off by what she was doing.

"I am accessing the data inside of your partner, altering it so that you will be able to activate your mode-change while biomerged," she responded.

"So, what about Ryo?" Rika inquired, doubting that she would be of much help there.

"I shall accompany you to the Emperor's headquarters," Kuzuhamon replied, hoping to get on the team's good side, "and I will use my powers to carry Ryo with us."

"Sounds good to me," Ryo said before turning to a certain red-head. "So, wildcat, ready for our mission?"  
Rika rolled her eyes. She was already dreading the whole thing.

###

The trip didn't take too long. MegaGargomon managed to destroy every spire from long distance, only losing a single piece of ammunition for each one. In the meantime, they got to enjoy the view from up above, passing through plains, mountain ranges that seemed to go on forever and a vast desert. Eventually, they reached the base, destroying every spire around it. It was situated in some badlands and looked like some sort of twisted, spiked tower on top of some red-rock formation. There were also many other formations that looked similar to the arches in Utah or something one would see on some alien world. Takato swore he saw the Guardian of Forever somewhere down there.

So they entered the building, disposing of every digimons' rings and spirals as they went through. So far, it had been easy. Almost too easy.

Then they found themselves in a room with the Emperor inside. The man was just standing there, wearing a long, black robe and a pointy, triangular mask that covered his entire face. He also had brown hair just on top.

"Oh, so you must be the digidestined that the rulers of this world decided to bring here. How exquisite," the Emperor joked. He looked to be someone in his early-to-mid-twenties. Obviously he had been here for years already.

"Okay, buster, what's the big deal? Why are you trying to take over this world, anyway?" Rika asked from inside Sakuyamon.

The Emperor just shrugged. "Well, as it turns out, while you losers are here, I'm in the process of invading that precious village that you came here from." The Emperor gave a flick of his fingers and images appeared all around him of an army of Ultimate-Levels led by the Mega-Level Merukimon laying waste to the village they started out in.

"What? No!" Takato gasped.

"Oh, yeah, I know," the Emperor said. "What a waste. Don't worry, your two friends that are still there will still be alive. They'll just be part of my awesome army."

Justimon moved forward. "That's not going to happen. We'll beat you today."

The Emperor just laughed. "Oh, is that true?"

Then he flicked his fingers again and disappeared. In his place stood another member of the Olympus XII, Vulcanusmon.

The Tamers fought him hurriedly so they could get back to Kazu and Kenta.

###

In the meantime, Kazu faced down Merukimon with Andromon. The battle was a disaster. So far, the cyborg was getting thrashed and was starting to lose most of his armor. There was no way that he was going to lose. Even with MarineAngemon dealing with some of the Ultimates, they were still losing the town.

Then a spire came up just outside of town and everything went down the tubes.

Andromon immediately devolved back into his base form of Guardromon, causing the battle to be even less in his favor.

He couldn't bear to see his partner lose. Not now, not ever. He had only recently achieved Ultimate during one of the battles following the Parasimon Invasion. There was no way that he could reach Mega.

Maybe he could. He had been partners with Guardromon long enough.

"Come on, man we have to beat this guy. Just aim at the Control Spire, man," he ordered.

"Alright!" The rust-colored android's arms opened and he shout out a salvo of missiles, which Merukimon simply intercepted, causing them to harmlessly impact his chest.

"Dang it!" Kazu shouted.

"What now?" Guardromon asked.

"We need a miracle. Come on, man, we need to defeat this guy together, even if we don't have digi-eggs with us." Kazu's fists clenched in determination.

With that, his digivice shined. He had never counted on Biomerging to work in the middle of a Control Spire Zone.

**BIOMERGE DIGIVOLUTION**

"Guardromon biomerge to… HiAndromon!" The rust-colored android merged with his partner to become a black, humanoid digimon that had a look similar to his Ultimate form except far more complete with red and blue shoulder pads shaped like skulls.

The digimon faced his enemy, prepared to either delete it or destroy the Dark Bangle on his right leg.

###

Volcanusmon moved forward and attacked Sakuyamon with his six knives. Sakuyamon barely had a chance to protect herself from the six attacks at once, but she stood her ground, whispering something as she did so. In the meantime, the other four Megas struck as well.

"Spirit Strike!" several ephemeral foxes of different colors flew out of Sakuyamon's staff, striking Volcanusmon's arms.

"Royal Saber!" Gallantmon Crimson Mode yelled, striking the Greek god in several different places along its body.

"Gargo Missile!" MegaGargomon shouted, opening up the frowning dog-faces and unleashing a salvo of missiles at the god.

"Justice Burst!" Justimon called out, transforming his right arm into a cannon and unleashing a beam of lightning, aiming for the dark bangle. The device was still there, clinging onto the Volcanusmon's back left arm for dear life despite some cracks that were on the surface.

The god decided to attack again once the four Megas finished their strikes. "Pinpoint Weapon Works!" The digimon instantly produced a machine gun, the Oro Salmon, and fired it at his opponents. Thankfully, it was only an Ultimate-level attack. However, it was more than a little annoying.

Gallantmon had enough. "Royal Saber!" he yelled, striking the Dark Bangle with his sword and shattering it.

"Naughty, naughty, you shouldn't have done that!" the Emperor's voice echoed throughout the chambers. Suddenly, they heard explosions all around them.

"What is that?" Sakuyamon asked as they turned around to exit.

"I set a bomb to go off once you destroyed my Dark Bangle," the Emperor explained as a hologram that stood in their path. The five Megas made their way through the projection and straight out the window of the building, flying towards non-imperial territory.

"Well, that was a waste of time," Ryo commented from inside Justimon as he rode on MegaGargomon's left shoulder.

"No kidding. We couldn't even save Volcanusmon," Rika remarked, annoyed. "I hope the others are having a better time than us."

"We did what we could, guys," Takato told the group from inside Gallantmon Crimson Mode. Still, he hoped that they could get out of that world in time.

###

HiAndromon moved forward, preparing an attack. "Atomic Ray!" he yelled, aiming straight at the Dark Bangle. Unfortunately for him, the god was too fast, dodging to the right. The cyborg looked on, preparing for an attack from the Olympus XII member.

"Thousand Fist!" Merukimon shouted, teleporting close to HiAndromon and giving the newly-evolved Mega a barrage, pummeling the cyborg's entire body. HiAndromon was thrown back and had a hard time getting up. He could also see fissures all over his obsidian armor.

Unfortunately, the god wasn't finished. "Spiritual Enchant!" he yelled, causing a rift in space-time to appear and various apparitions to come out. The phantoms headed straight for the cyborg, who braced himself.

"Digi-Modify! Mirror Shield Activate!" HiAndromon looked up to see Kenta to his side along with MarineAngemon. The attack from Merukimon didn't even graze the cyborg's armor.

"Man, am I glad to see you!" Kazu exclaimed from inside his partner's Mega form.

While they were still under the dome, MarineAngemon shot a group of hearts at HiAndromon, healing the fellow Mega. The Cyborg then got up, ready to strike.

"Copy Paste! Spiritual Enchant!" HiAndromon yelled, taking steps to seal up the space-time rift that Merukimon had created before the apparitions could damage him even more.

Showing how unreasoning he was as far as strategy was concerned, Merukimon struck using a different attack, albeit one that HiAndromon already knew about. "Thousand Fists!" The god teleported in front of the cyborg, who was still shielded by the Mirror Shield card that Kenta had scanned, meaning that the attack didn't damage HiAndromon at all, but instead hurt Merukimon in a thousand different ways. Seeing the opportunity and eyeing the dark bangle on the leg, the cyborg struck one last time.

"Atomic Ray!" HiAndromon yelled, shooting at the device that was controlling the Olympus XII Digimon and destroying it.

Merukimon fell backwards after the dark bangle was shattered, feeling something on the back of his neck. Whatever it was, it activated quickly, destabilizing the data in the god's entire body, causing him to disintegrate into nothingness.

HiAndromon just looked on, shocked that the digimon would have been rigged in such a way. Whoever this Digimon Emperor was, he was definitely a horrible person. Then again, Kazu thought about how he may have had a dark spore in him. Still, Davis' team never had to deal with this.

The visor-wearing boy clenched his fists. He was going to show the Emperor who was boss even if it was the last thing he did.

###

**400 Years Later (Almost Three Months Normal Time)**

The truth was that when you woke up from sleep, you expect to be in your bed. Unfortunately for Rinchei, that wasn't the case. The dark brown-haired eighteen-year-old instead found himself asleep on cold, rock-hard ground and was confused as he got up. He adjusted his glasses as he did so and looked for his partner, Dorumon, who was lying right next to him. He was surprised to find himself dressed for the day in his normal outfit as well.

Rinchei stretched out before walking over to his partner and shaking him. "Ten more minutes…" the digimon mumbled.

"We're not in my room, Dorumon," the eighteen-year-old told him. He pulled his digivice out of his pocket and checked it, hoping to find an exact location. Instead, he found a world map that was altogether unfamiliar to him consisting of one continent from pole to pole with a mass of black signals covering most of it and he was right in the middle of it along with another digivice signal.

"Where are we?"

"I have no idea," the teen replied. This didn't make any sense. He had to be in a dream. Still, he had to track down the other signal, so he walked toward it, navigating the cave's chambers.

"Do you think we're in the digital world?" the purple animal asked.

"I'm… not sure," the dark-haired man replied. He continued on.

"Yeah, doesn't look like home to me," Dorumon replied.

A few more minutes of walking and the duo came across a sleeping Kurita and Liollmon, lying on the ground. "Hey, Kurita! Wake up!" he yelled out, hoping to get the heavy teen up.

"Just give me a few minutes, mom," Kurita said, prompting Rinchei to try a different tactic.

"You're going to be late to school!" he called out in a falsetto before chuckling at the ridiculous voice.

"What? Not again!" the blond exclaimed, shooting up. Then he realized he wasn't in his room. "Oh, where the heck… Rinchei? You pretended to be my mom?" Kurita was seriously disturbed.

"Right…" the skinny boy said, chuckling at himself. "So, you have any idea where we are?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing," the blond said, picking up his partner who woke up. Somehow Liollmon had slept through the commotion though Kurita couldn't figure out how.

"Maybe we should head outside," Rinchei suggested as he walked through the cave, using his digivice's map program to guide the group of four.

After about ten minutes, they made it out of the cool cave and into a hot desert. "Wow, it's like a sauna out here!" Kurita exclaimed, shielding his eyes from the sun.

There were sand dunes for hundreds of miles but that wasn't all. There were also numerous black obelisks dotting the landscape in a pattern. Also, in the distance, the duo could see giant sandworms swimming through the dunes.

"Let's see, those are Arrakimon, Ultimate Levels," Rinchei told Kurita, reading from his digivice.

"Wow… Ever read Dune?" the large blond asked.

"Never heard of it," Dorumon replied.

"I can't say I have either," the skinny teen responded. "Still, it doesn't look like it's very safe out here."

"I agree. There's no way I'm going to stay out here much longer," Kurita commented as they went back into the cave. "For all we know we might find some Fremen in here."

"I have no idea what those are, so you'll have to enlighten me," Rinchei told the large man as they sat down.

"Well, how about we talk about something more important. You know what those black obelisks are?" the blond asked, grinning slightly.

"No, I don't," Rinchei answered, scratching his chin.

"_Those _are Control Spires. They restrict digivolution," Kurita responded before pulling out his digivice and looking at it. "And it looks like they cover half the continent if that's what these black signals are."

"Wait, so that means we can't digivolve?" Dorumon asked, a look of fear coming across his voice as Kurita nodded.

"Great… So, who put those there?" the skinny boy mean.

"There's a Digimon Emperor ruling this place. I have no idea who he could possibly be, though," Kurita explained. "Man, and to think everything was going to be easy until we went to the digital world with Immy and the others."  
"Immy?" Rinchei asked, slightly confused.

"Mr. Immortal. I have to find a name for that guy that's not so verbose."

"Right… Doesn't your last name have like five syllables in it or something?" the skinny guy inquired, narrowing his eyes at his friend.

"Okay, you got a point. I wonder what his real name is," Kurita mused.

"You really think he's immortal?" Rinchei asked, doubting, raising an eyebrow.

The blond shrugged. "Maybe he's like a highlander so he can die by beheading," he suggested.

"Talk about a bad joke, plus I don't know what _that _is either. We have to do something…" the dark-haired teen said. "Maybe we should leave at night and then destroy those control spires."

Kurita thought about it for a few more seconds before answering. "We should leave at night since it's so dang hot out, but I don't think we should destroy them since the Emperor might notice them. In the meantime I'll try to find the source of those things and maybe find a way to remotely disable them."

###

In a remote section of the continent, someone with brown hair who was wearing yellow goggles over their eyes was sitting while looking at various maps on a number of computer screens. He had detected Rinchei and Kurita's signals, though he had no idea who they were. All he knew was that there were now two signals that were unaccounted for and that they were deep in enemy territory.

He pulled out his white and gold D-Arc and looked it over before calling out for his partner. "Guilmon, are you ready for a trip?" the brown-haired man asked, clipping the digivice to his belt. He was wearing a black leather jacket with feathers on the inside and around the collar as well as brown pants.

"Yes, Takato, where are we going?" the red dino asked, running into the room.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" someone else asked. Takato looked up to see an older and wiser version of Henry walk into the room.

"What are you thinking?" the brown-haired man asked, looking at his friend of many years. He had some stubble on his face from not shaving in a few days.

"Well, you're the Emperor's number-one target. I think we should send in someone else to check out these signals like Kazu," the dark-haired man suggested.

"Okay, I'll do that," the brown-haired man replied before pressing a button on their base's computer. "Kazu Shioda, are you ready for a trip?"

_"Are you kidding me? I'm ready to get away from this whole patrolling thing more than anything," _Kazu replied through the communications network enthusiastically_. "Just tell me where to go, man, and I'll go straight there!"_

"They're in the middle of the Pangaea Desert, on the edge of an Arrakimon Colony. I want you to investigate and possibly bring these guys back," Takato explained.

_"Alright, I'll head straight there, man!" _Kazu exclaimed. _"Kazu, out!"_

###

Once nightfall hit, Kurita and Rinchei made their way out of the cave, being careful not to draw any attention to their location. The duo ran across the desert, being careful to remain close to any Control Spires. They basically ran from black obelisk to black obelisk. Thankfully the moons, one pink and the other yellow and in different phases, helped them find the things.

So, they ran, though slowly and steadily. Hopefully they wouldn't have to do any fighting, especially since they had both only reached Champion a little while ago and some Ultimate-level sandworm would probably eat them.

They continued on while Kurita scanned the giant devices, hoping to find their source or weakness, but to no avail. He was probably going to need help to find that. Still, he continued on with his friend as they went from spire to spire.

It took them a long time to traverse the vast desert and it was dawn before they saw some mountains in the distance. The duo held their breath, hoping to reach that area before the sun rose completely. Unfortunately, it was completely up before they even reached the end of the desert and the start of grassland, meaning that they would be visible to whatever digimon that showed up. Still, they pressed on.

Unfortunately, a powerful digimon had just appeared. Kurita could identify the angel in front of them even without a digivice. "Piddomon, Champion Level, Vaccine Attribute!" the blond shouted just as they reached a nearby Control Spire. "And, yeah, he's got a ring on him!"

"Crap," was all Rinchei could say, his right eyebrow twitching. "Well, we know what to do. Dorumon?"

"Liollmon?" Kurita asked. The two beasts both nodded and attacked the Spire.

"Liol Claw!" the lion shouted, nailing the control spire his front paws.

"Metal Cannon!" the purple beast yelled, shooting a silvery sphere at the spire, causing numerous cracks to appear over its surface.

The tower crumbled, falling into the grass. There was a little bit of electricity that emitted from the tower as well as it fell.

"Digivolution Activate!" the duo yelled out.

"Dorumon digivolve to… Dorurumon!"

"Liollmon digivolve to… Liamon!"  
The two large beasts braced for an attack as Piddomon headed straight for them. However, the angel stopped, no longer under control of the ring. Immediately, he snapped the mind-control device off his arm and faced his would-be opponents.

"Thank you for freeing me," Piddomon told a pair of astonished teenagers. "I feel we should travel together. You know, for safety in numbers."

Kurita looked at Rinchei. "Did we just get through that without a fight?" he asked.

"Well, that simplifies things," the brown-haired teen replied, his eyes narrowing before he turned toward their new ally. "Okay, we'll accept your offer."

"Are you sure? He almost attacked us," Dorurumon asked.

"On the contrary, I was under the control of the Digimon Emperor when I nearly attacked you," Piddomon responded, slightly offended.

"I wasn't talking to you," the purple beast responded.

"Dorurumon, be nice," Rinchei scolded his partner.

"This digimon Emperor… He isn't Ken Ichijouji isn't he?" the large blond inquired of Piddomon.

"How should I know?" the angel replied. "He showed up nearly four hundred years ago without warning, capable of controlling Champions and Ultimates from the start and Megas shortly thereafter. The only reason he has not taken over the entire digital world is because a group of Digidestined arrived sometime later and halted his efforts. They have been defending this world ever since."  
"Digidestined? No way…" Kurita's face changed from shock to glee as he realized what was happening. "We're going to meet actual digidestined!"

"How about finding a way to get home?" Rinchei asked, rolling his eyes.

"Come on! They need help here. Plus, this'll give us some good experience so we can help the rest of the team more easily." Kurita turned toward the angel. "So, any chance you can take us to these guys?"

"I will lead the way. However, we should probably find shelter soon, especially since the two of you destroyed that tower," the angel said, turning away and walking. "The Emperor is bound to send a search party after you two. In fact, it is inevitable."

"Okay, let's do that!" Kurita exclaimed before yawning. "I hope that we'll at least be able to sleep wherever we go."

Rinchei had to agree, since he was starting to feel extremely tired as well.

###

Kazu moved toward the Emperor's domains, safe from the inside of HiAndromon. He finally detected the two Tamers sometime after dawn, indicating that their life signs were in the range of his mega form's sensors.

"So, who do you think these new guys are? Man, it's hard to believe it's been 400 years since we've seen anybody other than our group," the brown-haired man commented.

"Agreed!" his partner replied. "It will be difficult adjusting to going back home. Maybe these Tamers will tell us what everything is like."

"Yeah!" Kazu exclaimed from inside his data-sphere. "Maybe they can help us against the Emperor!"

Every so often, the android would destroy a control spire to prevent them from devolving. Originally, they could biomerge in areas governed by control spires but the Emperor figured out how to put a stop to that real quick. Hopefully they would be able to meet the other Tamers safe and sound.

"Mega-level signal headed our way!" HiAndromon exclaimed in warning. "Dark Bangle detected."

"Crap! Okay, do whatever you have to do to destroy that Dark Bangle as soon as possible. At least those aren't ever permanent," Kazu said in relief that they wouldn't have to kill a digimon this time.

The digimon eventually appeared in view. It was a Pukumon, a relatively weak Mega that looked like a dark blue spiked blowfish wearing red boxing gloves on his muscular arms. The bangle, a black object dotted with spikes was on its left arm.

"Crap, this guy's too small. We're going to have to destroy him as soon as possible!" Kazu ordered, not liking it. "Strength Program, Activate!"

While he didn't have any access to Professor Guevara's OS upgrade for the digivice, Henry and Kenta managed to come up with an upgrade of their own by hacking the digivice. Because of it, they could modify their partners while in their Mega forms, though without cards.

"Atomic Ray!" HiAndromon yelled out, shooting a massive laser and deleting Pukumon in an instant.

_I hope I don't have to do _that _again,_ Kazu thought to himself, knowing that he would have to. He had been constantly making hard decisions since coming to this world.

He hated it.

He was glad to maintain some semblance of his old personality but even he realized that time would not be kind to him and he would become cold like the others. He couldn't let that happen.

"Okay, how are your energy reserves doing?" Kazu asked his partner as they continued flying through the air.

"They're at eighty percent and charging," HiAndromon responded. The truth was that the use of programs was not without its drawbacks. More power meant using more energy and they couldn't risk going at maximum lest they run out, something that would have dire consequences for them in the middle of battle.

Still, he continued on. "Deactivate Strength Program," the brown-haired man said, gritting his teeth from inside the data sphere.

###

"That's odd," Kurita remarked. "A bunch of those black signals are gone."

"Maybe one of the Digidestined is on their way," Piddomon suggested. The five of them were currently waiting inside a vast cavern.

"That's great," the large man said with a smile. "Hopefully we'll get to meet him. Funny that I haven't detected him yet."

Rinchei didn't know what to think. On one hand, he wanted to meet these new Tamers. On the other hand, he was worried that they would be forced into a war they didn't want.

"Hey, Rinchei, buddy, what's the matter?" the large blond asked his friend.

"I was thinking of how if these Tamers have been fighting for hundreds of years… Can you imagine the effect that would have on their minds?" the brown-haired eighteen-year-old asked.

"Yeah, that _would _suck," Kurita said, his mood suddenly somber. "Who knows, maybe they'd appreciate the help."

"Maybe." Then there a thought went through his mind. He wondered whether his younger brother, Henry, was in a similar predicament. He shuddered at the thought of the boy going through such a harrowing experience and having to lose his childhood innocence in the process.

He clenched his fists. If that was the case, then he would go after whoever was responsible and delete them himself.

"What's wrong, Rinchei?" Dorumon inquired of his partner.

"I was thinking, what if this was happening to my brother?" the dark brown-haired teen asked. "It's horrible even to think about."

"Sometimes I worry about Tadashi," Kurita told his friend. "I even worry about that temporal duplicate or whatever that was traveling across the digital world. To think of any version of my little brother having to go through anything disturbs me."

"At least you're a Tamer now so you can protect him," Rinchei responded.

"Yeah… But he won't let me." The large blond shook his head.

Just then, they heard footsteps heading for their location. The two Tamers and three digimon promptly hid as a humanoid figure clad in black entered into the cavern, scanning it. Kurita looked at him briefly and then came back down, sitting with his back against the rock. He looked at his digivice and saw what the digimon was: HiAndromon, Mega Level. That was all he had to read to realize he was totally outclassed if this digimon was under the control of the emperor.

It was about then that the powerful digimon spoke. "I am an enemy of the emperor. If you're an enemy as well, I would like to make your acquaintance."

Kurita took a deep breath and stood up, figuring that he might as well take one for the team. As he stood, he noticed his friend mouth three words. "Are you nuts?"

"The name's Kurita Nakabayashi and I'm a digimon Tamer," he said, holding out his orange digivice.

The black-clad digimon stood in shock. "A Digimon Tamer? No… No way!" This voice was slightly different from the one that had already spoken and somewhat familiar to the large man."

This time, Rinchei stood up as well. The two partner digimon as well as the refugee that was traveling with them made their appearance as well.

Then they heard some rumbling. "We've got to get out of here! The Emperor's forces are closing in fast!" the Mega told them.

"Of course," Rinchei said. "So, any ideas?"

"I have one." The digimon said, punching his fist into the ground. He then used an ability he had gotten from an AncientWisemon using his Copy Paste attack and that had been added to his arsenal permanently thanks to one of Henry's programs. Before an army of Sealsdramon and Mechanorimon could make their way into the cavern, the group of six had vanished.

###  
A/N: Well, there you have it. The first appearance of Takato's team since the beginning of the fic. Tell me what you think.

One thing I'm trying to avoid with these Emperors is making them duplicates of Ken. Thus you have some of David Symanski's humanity showing through as well as Samuel Joseph Krenzel having been under control of the spore so long that he's set up his controlled digimon to die if they get freed (though, only when they're Megas. However, some Champions and Ultimates have things called permanent rings and spirals that are buried in the digimon themselves).

And last but not least, the second half of this chapter was written weeks before the first half (in fact, it was intended to be Chapter 20. You can see the old Clock Shop man alluding to this idea in Chapter 19).

Anyway, hopefully the next chapter will come out quicker than this one. Part of my problem is that I hate writing fight scenes, especially ones with multiple combatants.


	27. The Immortal Tamers

Chapter 27: The Immortal Tamers

###

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

###

"Ow, I feel like I have a hangover," Rinchei commented, clutching the sides of his head. He also felt some serious nausea and so did Kurita, though to a lesser extent.

"Using that technique over long distances tends to do that." There was that voice again. The group found themselves in the courtyard of a large fortress.

"I must pledge my thanks for bringing us here," Piddomon told the large android.

"No problem, man," he said before splitting off into two, Andromon and a man who looked to be in his mid-twenties with brown hair spiked upward. Kurita instantly recognized him.

"Kazu!" he exclaimed, fidgeting nervously out of shock and pointing at the guy.

"Wait, do we know each other?" the brown-haired man asked.

"You were friends with my brother Tadashi!" the giant blond exclaimed in joy. "No way! This is just insane! We're in the same world as Takato and the others! What are the odds?"

Rinchei just stood there in silence. His greatest nightmare had been realized: his brother had to endure years in a distant world. "Henry? Is he here?"

"Yeah? You know him?" Kazu asked, not recognize either of the eighteen-year-olds.

"He's my brother!" the skinny guy yelled.

"No way…" Kazu looked in between the two teens. "How the heck is this possible? We've been gone for four-hundred years." He didn't quite believe Kuzuhamon that there was a time difference between this digital world and his native world. Everyone had hoped that there was but feared the opposite.

"No, you've been only gone three months," Kurita objected. "But… Man, this is freaky."

Kazu didn't know how to take it. "My parents are still alive," he said in shock, dropping to the ground. "They're still alive!"

"Uh, yeah, they are," the large blond told the brown-haired man, slightly confused.

"What about Jeri and the others? What about Ai and Mako?" the spikey brown-haired man asked Kurita happily, holding the large man by the collar.

"They're all doing great," Kurita replied, barely suppressing a grin. "But before I tell you about everything, how about we meet the others. I'm sure Rinchei wants to meet his brother after all this time and I'm sure that Henry feels the same way."

Kazu smiled. "This has made living forever worth it."

"Wait till you live forever in a time of peace. You might have to get a new hobby," Kurita told him as the more-experienced Tamer led the two of them into the building.

He instantly shouted as he entered. "Everybody, we have visitors and they have news from our world!" Kazu shouted with glee.

Immediately, a shorter man with black hair showed up as well as another brown-haired man, this one noticeably tanned. Soon after, a familiar red dinosaur peeked his head over the railing on the top floor as well as a certain dog-rabbit.

The blond chuckled at the sight. "Wow, and to think my brother was searching for these guys…"

"You're from our world?" the second brown-haired man asked.

"Yeah, the name's Kurita Nakabayashi. You must be Ryo, am I right?" the blond asked.

"Yeah, that's my name," the man responded, noticeably shaken.

"This is crazy!" the black-haired guy, presumably Kenta, exclaimed. "You're one of Tadashi's descendants?"

"No," Kurita said with a chuckle. "I'm his older brother." The blond noticed Rinchei climb the stairs as he talked with the others.

###

"Come on, Henry! They're down there and they're waiting for us!" Terriermon told his partner.

"Not now, Terriermon. I'll talk to them at dinner," the dark-haired man said as he went over schematics with Takato.

"But Henry…"

"So, you wouldn't take a chance to see your older brother?" Henry looked away from the schematics to see something he didn't believe. Rinchei. This was impossible. This had to be an illusion.

But then he felt his brother's hand on his shoulder. Takato was looking from the other side of the table, equally in shock at the sight.

"Rinchei? It's really you," the dark-haired man said, tears streaming down his face as he hugged his brother for the first time in over four hundred years. "I thought you were gone. I thought you all were."

"Time must passes differently in this world," the dark brown-haired teen said, tears coming down his face as well. "Mom, dad, Jaarin and Suzie are all okay. They're waiting for you. We all are." Rinchei had to stifle some sniffles.

Takato walked over from his place. "What about my parents? Are they okay?" he asked, getting a nod from his friend's brother.

"As far as I know, Jeri is too," Rinchei said, causing a bit of guilt to come into Takato's heart. "She comes by Hypnos every day just in case, though lately she's been a bit busy."

Takato smiled sadly at what could have been. "She's okay, good." Then he turned and walked away. "I'll be in the other room."

Rinchei nodded.

###

"So, Tadashi and the others are Tamers? When did that happen?" Kazu asked, surprised at the large man's announcement. They were sitting at the dining table.

"It was shortly after you left. First Tadashi and Yuji got partners, followed by Taizou and Miki sometime later," Kurita explained. "I guess Ayaka got hers a bit earlier and she just achieved Ultimate too."

"Crazy," the brown-haired guy responded. "When did you guys get partners? You and Henry's bro, I mean."

"About a week-and-a-half ago," Kurita replied. "I got an egg from a friend of mine. You may have met him. He was going by Keith Jackson at the time."

"That name doesn't ring a bell," Kenta replied. "Sorry."

"Not a problem," the blond said. "So, how many of you are here?"

"Five. Me, Kazu, Kenta, Takato and Henry. Rika's out on patrols, but she'll be back by dinner," Takato told Kurita. It was then that the blond noticed the ring on the man's left hand.

"Wait a second, are you married, man?" Kurita asked, grabbing the goggle-headed Tamer's arm and examining the ring for himself.

"Uh, yeah, Rika and I tied the knot ages ago," Takato responded, chuckling.

"Man, how can the rest of you guys stand having only one girl around, anyway?" Kurita inquired of the rest. "I mean, it's gotta suck that she's taken."

"We try not to think about it, man," Kazu said, reclining backwards in his chair. "Still, I wish somebody would send some cute girls here or something like that. It sucks that there are no girls around."

Kenta nodded in agreement. It was about that time when Takato walked into the room.

"How is everything going?" Ryo asked the group.

"Great," Takato responded. "We were just telling Kurita about a few of the things that have happened during our stay here."

"Yeah, they told me about this one battle. Where was it at again?" Kurita asked, referring to what they were talking about before they got on the subject of relationships.

"The Valley of the End. We managed to push the Emperor's forces back many miles," Ryo said.

"The Valley of the End? Isn't that a place on Naruto?" the blond joked.

"Naruto? I haven't thought of that show in ages," Kazu said, chuckling.

Takato looked at the rest, a grin forming on his face. "Rinchei apprised me of the situation. Tomorrow we are going to start training him and Kurita!"

Kurita looked in shock at that one. This definitely wasn't the same kid he had met in the past.

Everything changed.

###

Rika and Renamon made it back as the sun began to set around the compound. So far, there was next to nothing to worry about. The Emperor's forces seemed to have been busy elsewhere for some reason. She wondered if the incursion that Kazu made into his territory had something to do with it. She noticed hours earlier, but thought it was just him being a bonehead like always.

"I feel a presence. Several new presences, actually," Renamon told her, seemingly out of the blue.

"So, they probably got a few digimon visiting or something," Rika remarked. "By the way, when we get inside, I want a little alone time with Ryo."

The yellow fox understood. "That shall happen."

"Good. I wonder what he's up to right now," she said with a mischievous smile.

"He's most likely at the dinner table, getting ready to eat," Renamon told her.

"Oh please, after a week of patrolling, he better be more romantic than that," she told her partner. "Come on, I want candles and rose petals."

Renamon rolled her eyes. "Strange, he usually has something planned, but I clearly sense his presence at the table."

"Along with those new presences? Maybe the Emperor decided to finally give it up," Rika suggested.

"Somehow I doubt it, Rika," her partner said as they inched toward the dining room. That was when Rika noticed something unexpected. There were two people she didn't recognize. The woman entered into the room as they were talking about everything that had gone on over the past four-hundred years.

"So, anyway, Rika got kidnapped. We planned a rescue operation but met her just a hundred miles into the Emperor's domain," Kazu said, grinning as he told the story. "It turned out that the Emperor tried to marry her but she refused to go along with it and kicked him where it hurt most instead."

"The guy probably deserved it," Kurita said before shuddering. "Still, that's gotta hurt. Was she married to Takato at the time."  
"Yeah," the goggle-head said, rolling his eyes. "We had been married for twenty years by then."

"And we're still married," the red-head commented, alerting everybody to her presence. She still looked much the same, though she was definitely more mature than she used to be. "So, this is the surprise you had waiting, huh? A shame, I was expecting flowers." Her tone was teasing and she was smiling.

Takato walked over and kissed her. "Well, yeah, I was going to do that, but we found these guys in the middle of an Arrakimon colony."

"Or at least I did," Kazu boasted, grinning from ear to ear.

"I found them first," the goggle-head told him. "You just went and got them."

"Okay, number one target of the Emperor," the visor-wearing man said.

"So, are you going to introduce me to the new guys or what?" Rika inquired.

"The name's Kurita Nakabayashi," the large blond responded, walking up to the red-head, kneeling and kissing her hand. "Pleased to meet you. Shame you're taken."

The girl rolled her eyes and so did Ryo. "Oh please, I'm four-hundred years too old for you."

"And I'm Henry's brother, Rinchei," the dark-haired newcomer said, raising his hand.

"Henry, you lucky son of a gun. You know, though, I _really _wish another girl would have come instead, but this should work out fine, I guess," Rika commented.

"Don't we all," Kazu told her.

"So, one thing that's been bugging me: how are you still alive after all this time?" Kurita asked. "And man, you guys all look great!"

"The digimon that brought us here, Kuzuhamon, spent years studying our biology," Takato explained, "and, well, she did something to our bodies that prevented the cells from aging and at the same time destroyed any cancer cells or disease."

"I think she should have created a bunch of girls for us as well," Kazu stated. "Or at least made a bunch of Rikas or something." The commented earned him a massive glare from the red-head.

"So, how are things back home?" the red-head asked.

Rinchei and Kurita explained everything to Rika that they had already told Takato and the others.

###

The Emperor thought about things as he received his daily massage and healing treatment. Thanks to the latter, he had been able to maintain the looks of a twenty-year-old despite having been alive for far longer. Still, there were a number of issues he has had over the years.

After the massage was finished, he got up and moved his massive body over to the window, eyeing his fleets. He had had so much trouble from Takato's team over the years that he was just about done with it. He needed his final solution and he needed it now.

It was about then that his chief general, a golden-armored digimon named Jupitermon, walked in. The former leader of the Olympus XII bore a dark bangle on his left arm.

"Your excellence, the fusion process has proven successful," the god informed him.

"Great. I guess we'll just have to test it out. You know, with the entire army to back it up, we should have a decisive victory against Takato and that stupid team of his." The Emperor's voice was crackly.

"By the way, the Arrakimon colony detected something else that the Tamers had found," Jupitermon decided to add.

"Yeah, what is it?" the Emperor asked rudely.

"Two more Tamers have appeared, seemingly out of nowhere," the god said, a bit of worry in his voice that he was about to get killed for his delay even though the Emperor didn't really have the power to destroy him at the moment.

"What? Like that's going to be a problem. The plan is going to go perfectly." The massive man laughed. "They won't know what hit them."

###

The next couple of weeks involved lots of training and going on patrols for Kurita and Rinchei. Rinchei always went with his brother while Kurita would constantly go with Takato.

One day, Kurita made his way through some badlands with the goggle-headed leader before stopping for a break. The blond looked around at the area, admiring the rust-colored rocks and sparse vegetation while wandering a little away from camp. So far, they hadn't encountered anything dangerous and the large blond kind of wanted something to break up the monotony.

"So, is there anything like this in the real world?" Liollmon asked out of curiosity.

"The real world has just about everything in it," Kurita replied, feeling the wind go through his hair. He felt like he was going to need to get it cut soon.

"Maybe when we get back we should go to a place like that," the lion cub suggested.

"Yeah, that would be cool," the blond responded. He was starting to miss home, despite his brother's betrayal. The next time he talked to that kid, he was going to smack him on the side of the head. Not that he was actually going to do it. Still, the whole thing hit him hard. Tadashi worried him.

It was about then that he noticed some text on the wall. Only this text was in plain English. The large man squinted for a second as he read through the writing on the wall, stopping at a weird symbol at the end.

"_I hope you like the digital world."_

"What? Who the heck wrote this?"

That was when he noticed the next line: _"This was written by the Time Lord, Alexander Rinaldi."_

"Right… Takato! I found something!" the large man called out.

_"Are you ready to reach Ultimate?"_

The large blond stared at the text. He wondered how that was happening. "Okay, seriously, what the heck is going on?"

_"I'm talking to you."_

"Right…" The blond rolled his eyes before looking around. "So, that means you're watching me."

_"Pretty much."  
_"Okay, then how the heck are you writing this?" Kurita asked, clenching his teeth in frustration. He read the next line.

_"Well, I'm watching you from the past. I'm a Time Lord, remember, not that I want to be one."  
_Kurita raised an eyebrow. There was no way he was going to think about that one too hard. "Okay, what the heck is going on, exactly? Are you the dude that brought Rinchei and I here?"

_"No, that was my predecessor, the Watchmaker. I figured that since you'd be here, I'd send you a message. Oh, by the way, duck." _Kurita made a face before doing so. He was glad he did since a fist went straight into the wall in front of him. When he got out of the way, he looked back to see what digimon had attempted to attack. It was a large, muscular cat man. The blond checked his digivice. "Persiamon (male), Ultimate Level, Virus Attribute. The heck?"

"Liollmon digivolve to… Liamon!" his partner yelled out, reaching the Champion Level. It wasn't going to be easy, though, and they knew that. "King's Thunder!" The digimon charged for two seconds as Persiamon turned around before unleashing an electrical attack against the enemy digimon.

Kurita looked at a nearby wall. More lettering. _"There's a dark spiral on the digimon's arm. You need to reach Ultimate, though."  
_"The heck do I do that?" he asked before turning his attention to the digimon his partner was fighting.

"Vampire Wave!" the male Persiamon shouted, aiming for Liamon's neck. The lion was able to dodge, though, and countered with an attack of his own. The lion bore his fangs and aimed for Persiamon's chest.

"Critical Strike!" The attack struck Persiamon's chest, causing small amounts of data to spill out. Still, the attack didn't really do tons of damage.

Kurita grabbed some of his cards. "Digi-modify! Strength Activate!" he yelled, scanning a card and causing Liamon to become slightly stronger. Unfortunately, the next attack he used didn't work out as well, due to Persiamon avoiding it.

Kurita thought about it some more. He needed to destroy the dark spiral and soon. But how would he do that?

Liamon charged at Persiamon, readying his attack. "King's Thunder!"

The cat dodged the attack by moving to the side before lunging forward and grabbing hold of the lion in front of him, using its superior strength to prevent Liamon from moving or even biting.

Kurita needed to help his partner. He had already used a strength card so that wasn't an option. He needed to do something fast. He wasn't going to let his partner down. Looking around, he saw a number of rocks, some small, others large. So, he grabbed one of the large ones and hurled it at the male Persiamon, attempting to aim at the dark spiral around its arm but failing.

"There's no way I'm going to fail my partner. No way, man!" the large teen yelled out, charging against the digimon himself to try and rip off the spiral with his above aver average strength or at least free his partner from the grips of the Ultimate-level digimon long enough for him to do. The blond yelled out a battle cry, charging like he would in football and aiming straight at the arm.

All he managed to do was distract the cat-like digimon a little bit so that he had loosened his grip slightly. Then the blond grabbed another large stone and, using his above-average strength, hurled it at the digimon. It hit and the Persiamon had had enough, so he let go of Liamon and aimed straight for Kurita.

_This is the end, _the blond thought. There was no way he was going to let anybody else down. He had already let his partner down. And his brother.

Except that he didn't. His partner was free now and as Persiamon headed straight for the robust blond, Liamon charged him as well. The lion distracted the large cat long enough for Kurita to move out of the way. "There's no way you're going to hurt my partner, kitty!"

The male Persiamon grinned before clawing Liamon in the chest with its sharp claws.

That prompted another stone throw. "I'm sorry I let you down, man!" Kurita exclaimed to his partner.

"You didn't let me down, partner," Liamon assured him, reeling from the pain. The enemy digimon then turned his attention toward Kurita once again. He should have done this first. After all, the Tamer is the weakest part of the human-partner relationship.

So he charged the large man, ready to take a chunk out of that belly. What he didn't expect was a light-blue light coming from the digivice as he approached.

Reliability…

**SUPER DIGIVOLUTION_**

"Liamon digivolve to…" The digimon grew, becoming a larger, metallic digimon, painted yellow. The digimon's metal mane seemed to be a cyclone around his head and looked like it had numerous knives jutting out of it. The rest of his cyborg body had yellow armor over it, stretching from head to toe. His tail turned into a large, spiked Morningstar.

"… LoaderLiomon!"

Kurita backed up against the wall and read the text on it. _"Good job." _Instantly, the large man rolled his eyes.

LoaderLiomon immediately tackled Persiamon, using his now-superior strength to get the digimon away from his partner. "Boring Storm!" The digimon's mane rotated extremely fast, causing him to damage the large cat all over the body.

Then, aiming for the dark spiral, the digimon prepared another attack. "Loader Morningstar!"

The attack shattered the dark spiral, causing it to fly off into multiple pieces. Persiamon immediately screamed before running away. Apparently the digimon had no idea what was happening.

Kurita just stood there. He had a hard time believing he had actually achieved Ultimate with his partner. It felt like they had been together only a short time. The large blond took a deep breath and smiled.

"Okay, so where's your camera, dude?" he asked to the wall before seeing the answer.

_"I don't have a camera. I'm using your digivice." _The blond's eyes widened. _"Yeah, yeah, I know. It's a bit disturbing but your digivices are also recording devices. Heh." _Kurita had no idea how many times he had taken the digivice into the bathroom or into the gym with him. He shuddered at the thought.

"So, what do you want, anyway? Are you the Emperor?"

He saw the answer to that one as well. _"Oh, no, definitely not. The emperor's some dude named Samuel Joseph Krenzel. Didn't you try looking for him with your digivice?"_

"Never thought about it," Kurita commented, grabbing the infernal monitoring device and using it to locate the Second Emperor. "Partner: Mercurymon. Nationality: American. Other than that, nothing much on this guy."

Then he saw the next bit of writing. _"That's what's with him having a D-3. They have a few more features than basic Adventure digivices, but other than that, not much. Strange, the digivices used by the original digidestined are actually slightly more advanced than the Adventure Digivices, despite having been made before. I wonder if Gennai's team lost the records sometime after the final defeat of their enemy."_

Kurita gave the writing a look. "Okay, is there any point to this? Why don't you just show your face?"

_"I'd rather not. Not like you'd recognize me, anyway, but still… As far as the point… Well, you have only a few days until the Second Emperor decides to unleash his ultimate weapon, pun not intended."_

"I have no idea what you're talking about with the pun thing," Kurita said, narrowing his eyes.

"I have no idea either," LoaderLiomon agreed.

_"Hehe, you'll see when you get there." _Kurita was getting tired of seeing random responses to his questions and statements everywhere he looked. He gritted his teeth in irritation at the prospect of being watched as well. _"Anyway, warn the Tamers. Only a few days and his generator will go down. At the same time, he'll unleash his weapon. My team, or rather, Art's team, has managed to set this back as far as possible, but now it's up to you, Takato and the others."_

"Art? That a name?" the large blond asked before finding his eyes latch onto something else.

_"Uh, yeah, good kid. Anyway, you're also going to have to go to World 6-0 with Takato and the others after this and wait for Kurata. My attempts to get your brother's team to go after the Dimension Key using the texts I put on various walls met with failure and they went after Dagomon instead, resulting in Kurata getting the key before the whole Two Emperor's thing was resolved."_

"Why don't you do this yourself?" Kurita asked as he saw Takato finally show up.

_"Don't have a partner. Plus, it took me forever to get Art's team together. You know how hard it is to get a team together when being a Tamer is banned?"_

The heavyset man was having a hard time believing this whole Time Lord mumbo-jumbo, especially when he wouldn't show his face. At that time, Takato finally showed up, not having heard Kurita call for him earlier and deciding to look for him. "Okay, Al, I'll tell the others, but you're going to have to tell us soon yourself."

"Who are you talking to?" Takato asked before Kurita found the final piece of writing.

_"Alright, that works. Find my old friend Antonio when you get a chance and tell him Alexander Rinaldi said hi. Oh, and his son says hi, too."_

"This dude, a Time Lord, decided to talk to me from the past using these inscriptions. Whenever I would ask a question, a new one would show up," Kurita explained. "I wonder who the heck he is. He knows Ed, I guess."

"That's weird…" Takato commented. "What did he say?"

"The Emperor is going unleash his ultimate weapon when his generator fails. I guess this guy's been stalling him somehow," Kurita explained.

The goggle-headed man shook his head, finally figuring something out. "So that's what the Emperor meant."

"You've heard of these guys?" the large blond asked.

Takato nodded. "Yeah, some team of Tamers showed up every few years, I guess. The Emperor claimed we hijacked his projects, but we don't know who they are other than that. Oh, and there were also all the books, DVDs and computers that appeared out of nowhere in our library. Apparently someone thinks we should all study for something called a GED."

Kurita nodded. After a few minutes' pause, he spoke again. "Have you ever felt like you were some pawn in somebody else's larger game?"

Takato gave him another affirmative answer. "Yeah…"

"Now, why all the subterfuge?" Kurita asked.

"Maybe he feels that if he messes around too much in the past, he'll screw it up," the brown-haired man suggested.

"But still, if he just came forward and explained everything… Oh, and he said we should go to World 6-0 right after this. Something called a Dimension Key."

Takato nodded. "We're going to have to talk to the others about this."

"Oh, and by the way, I reached Ultimate," Kurita told Takato.

The blond gave another affirmative. "Cool, just reach Mega and you'll be ready to beat the Emperor single-handedly."

###  
"I don't believe it," Rika told the group. "This couldn't have possibly happened."

"I was there," Frimon, Liollmon's in-training form, confirmed, bouncing on his partner's lap.

"Think about it. This explains everything!" Takato told the team, sitting at the head of the table.

"Yeah, but this is unlikely. How do we know that these Time Lords exist?" Henry asked.

"There can probably be only one at a time," Kurita suggested. "Plus, we've heard about the other Time Lord, the Watchmaker. We don't know who he is exactly, but we can guess that he has something to do with this."

"So, we're dealing with time travelers?" Henry asked. "This should be interesting. Have any idea when they're from?"

Kurita shrugged. "I'd guess the future. Alex said that he had to scrounge up a team in a world where Taming was illegal."

"Time travel? Man this is going to give me a headache," Kazu mumbled, rubbing his forehead and grimacing. "Still, after 400 years stuck here, I kind of wish he would have beaten the Emperor before we got here instead. Watch, he probably couldn't. Some mumbo-jumbo about preserving the timeline or something."

"I wonder what this Dimension Key does," Kenta mused, scratching his chin. The boy was still the shortest one in the room, adulthood didn't change that fact.

"Whatever it is, it can't be good," Rinchei told the group calmly.

"We'll need to get to World 6-0 right after this so maybe then we'll find out," the Kurita said.

"Who said that we'd be going?" Rika asked the massive blond.

"You know, she's right," Takato said, though more calmly. "We should take a vote on this."

"Yeah, and then we need to figure out what to do about this Ultimate Weapon that the Emperor has," Henry commented.

"And who knows, this Kurata guy might be a good guy and that Alexander dude might actually be evil," Kazu suggested.

The heavy blond shook his head. They would have to figure out what to do eventually, but for now, they were at a stalemate.

###

A few hours later, Rinchei found Kurita and his partner in the game room, where they could play pirated versions of just about any video game in history that Kuzuhamon had gotten from the net. Right now, Kurita was busy playing some adventure game with an unidentifiable orange marsupial on the front with a large triangular body and a small lower body covered in jeans.

"Hey, how are you doing?" the dark-brown-haired teen asked his friend, concerned for his well-being.

"Alright, just a few more hours of Crash Bandicoot and I'll be fine," Kurita responded. "You know, I can't blame them. They've been stuck here for 400 years and they're right."

Rinchei nodded. "So, what are you going to do?"

Kurita thought about it for a second. The massive blond scratched his chin while doing so cross-legged and with Crash Bandicoot on pause. "I know exactly what I'm going to do, okay."

"What?" Rinchei inquired, fearing what the answer might be. He was prepared for anything.

"Well, it's my responsibility to go and investigate these charges against Kurata and see what this dimension key does," the blond told his lanky friend, a determined grin crossing his face.

Rinchei shook his head. "You're nuts, man, you're nuts."

Kurita chuckled a bit. "Oh, yeah, and I know it! But it has to be done. If this guy's a threat, then I might just save the Multiverse or something."

The lanky man smiled. "Okay, then I guess I'll have to come with you."

###

The Emperor knew something was up when he woke up to alarms. Getting straight out of bed and putting on his robes, he went straight for the control room. "What the-?"

The sight would have been a familiar nightmare to the other emperor. The screen said: Generator Power: 99%.

The Emperor knew what he had to do. He hit a button that activated a command program for all his slaves in case something like this happened. Then he went and slammed on a button that would unleash his ultimate weapon. If he couldn't have this world, nobody could. He didn't endure 400 years of war, removing dark flowers and having to deal with teams coming out of nowhere and destroying his progress for nothing.

The final invasion would begin and the Emperor would escape.

###

A/N: Apologies to those wanting a different couple. I originally wrote the scene with Ryuki in mind but, I don't know, I just like Rukato better. Hehe.

So, yeah, there's a second Time Lord thrown into the mix. He's actually a character that's already been introduced. Also, Art's important, though you won't see him for a while (Though, I'm thinking of making a short spin-off taking place after Chapter 29 with Jeri and Alice as well as Ai, Mako, and a couple more minor characters introduced in this story, and probably putting him in it along with two character that have already been introduced that are revealed to be Tamers in Chapter 29).

Hehe, next chapter details the Second Emperor's fall. And we'll get back to Tadashi and his team by the end.


	28. The Long Way Home

Chapter 28: The Long Way Home

###

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

###

The multiple-proximity alarm woke everyone up at three in the morning, including Rika, who immediately shot out of bed and headed straight for her dresser to put on her combat clothes. Takato took about a minute longer to slide out of bed before heading to his dresser on the opposite side of the room.

"Wow, goggle-head, taking your time, are you?" Rika teased him with a smile as she slipped on her pants before grabbing her bra.

"Uh, yeah, it's like three in the morning," the brown-haired Tamer responded, putting his shirt on as quickly as he possibly could. "Plus, it doesn't help that we were busy until late last night."

Rika smiled at him, putting on her shirt and finally her jacket before grabbing her shoes. "So, when we get back home, where do you want to go for a vacation?" the red-head inquired, putting her boots on before tying them.

"Uh, I don't know. Hawaii, maybe. I've never been out of Japan." Takato put his pants on. "At least we had a honeymoon."  
"Yeah, though it was kind of ruined when the Emperor attacked," the red-head said, rolling her eyes. "Still, it was nice to get off the continent for once. And the two days before the attack were fun."

Takato gave her a smile. "Yeah, what was with you wanting to go skinny-dipping all the time, anyway?"

Rika shrugged before getting up and heading out the door. "I don't know. It's been a couple hundred years."

Takato smiled. They've had their ups and downs but at least they were happy. They were one.

He finally put on his boots and walked out. Guilmon and Renamon were in the next room. On a normal day, Guilmon would have been curled up like a dog on his bed but today he was up and alert. "What's going on, Takato?" he asked.

"I don't know, buddy. That's what we're going to find out," the goggle-headed Tamer responded before following his wife and her partner downstairs. He liked the wooden complex but at the same time, he looked forward to getting back to the real world. Maybe after getting Rinchei and Kurita to Mega… The two Tamers only just reached Ultimate, so that was a few months off, still. At least they had fresh blood, though, along with fresh perspectives on everything. They're not quite so jaded about life nor are they as set in their ways as Takato's team had gotten.

The brown-haired teen finally reached downstairs where he found Rinchei, wearing the standard uniform. IT was actually one of Henry's. Kurita was wearing a uniform from a time when Kazu was slightly overweight, but it was still too small and a bit of gut was appearing from the bottom, grossing out both Takato and Rika. The blond finally decided to take off the shirt and just wear the jacket over his one shirt, even though he had to wear that open.

"They still haven't gotten you a fit for this, huh?" Henry asked.

"Uh, no," Kurita responded with a lopsided smile.

"Don't worry, buddy, we'll get you something at actually fits after this whole battle is over with," Kazu assured him.

"But, what if this is the final battle that I heard about the other day?" Kurita inquired.

"Yeah, right," the tall man responded with a grin. "One thing I've learned is to not trust dudes that could save us but don't."

"Then again, if he saved us, then the Emperor would be free to take over this entire world. Think about that for a second," Rika responded, giving him food for thought.

"So, what are we going to do?" Rinchei asked the group coolly. Takato gestured for him to follow. They walked through a number of corridors, past the gyms and pool area and into a room with a large train.

"Hey, Trailmon, ready for lift-off?" Takato asked the train as the doors opened to get on.

"Most certainly, Takato Matsuki," the train responded, letting the goggle-headed Tamer and his entire team get on. As the team sat down, Takato asked the team some questions. "Okay, so what's going on, exactly?"

Henry was the first to speak. "According to our sensors, there's an entire army of digimon going across Imperial territory and headed toward us. They just reached the borders a few hours ago."

"Okay, what's the status of the Emperor's territory?" Takato asked, and Kenta responded.

"Uh, you won't believe it, but… It's shrinking." The entire team looked at the shorter man with surprise and disbelief.

"No way, maybe that's a sign the generator failed or something," Kurita suggested, his mouth opened wide.

"So, how far is the nearest group of enemy digimon?" Takato asked.

"About twenty miles from the compound. We should be there in a few minutes," Henry said.

"Alright, I'll need everybody on the roof except for Kurita and Rinchei," Takato ordered. "When you get there, get on standby so you can all biomerge. Rinchei, Kurita, send your partners up and prepare to digivolve them to Ultimate. Just stay here until the battle's over."

The two of them nodded. As the only ones who couldn't biomerge, this was quite possibly the safest place they could be during the whole fight.

###

Henry frowned at the sight of the numerous digimon heading straight for them. Except that it looked almost like some of them were running away from others. He pulled out his binoculars and saw that the ones running away were all Champion-levels with dark rings, inactive due to them being outside a Control Spire's influence. The other Digimon, Ultimates and Megas, were destroying the Champions.

"Oh, crap, that's freaky!" Kazu exclaimed.

"We've got to save them," Takato said.

"But there are so many," Rika responded.

"She's right," Henry agreed.

"Then what should we do?" the goggle-headed leader asked.

"I'd say we save them, even though it's the boneheaded thing to do," Terriermon said, his normal cheer replaced with concern.

Takato nodded. "Then let's do that. Everybody, biomerge but don't go any further. Biomerge Activate!"

"Guilmon biomerge to… Gallantmon!" the red dino shouted, merging with his partner to become a familiar white-armored knight.

Everyone else said the same phrase, including Kenta. "Biomerge Activate!"

"Terriermon biomerge to… MegaGargomon!"

"Renamon biomerge to… Sakuyamon!"

"Cyberdramon biomerge to… Justimon!"

"Guardromon biomerge to… HiAndromon!"

"MarineAngemon pipipiipi… Aegisdramon!"

"Liollmon digivolve to… LoaderLiomon!"

"Dorumon digivolve to… DoruGreymon!"

The six Megas and two Ultimates immediately flew off of the stopping train and headed straight for the line of digimon, but they were stopped along the way by a golden-armored digimon.

Kurita looked on from inside the train and used his digivice to identify the digimon. "Jupitermon, Mega Level, Vaccine. Oh crap, why do I get the feeling this is the last of the Olympus XII for them to fight?"

Rinchei looked on in fear as well. "Man, that thing better not hurt my little brother!" he exclaimed, grimacing at the thought.

Back on the battlefield, Takato gave out orders. "Kenta, take this guy on with Aegisdramon. The rest of us will go after the crowd."

So they did. The five Megas and two Ultimates immediately started to take on whatever Ultimates they could find, immediately aiming for the dark spirals on various body parts. They had to do it fast, so there were times when they were forced to cut open limbs because of that. Still, the Ultimates they freed realized that it was a necessary pain and so they started fighting alongside them against the myriads of Ultimates. Thankfully, Megas were far rarer than Ultimates, though due to their superior strength, a number of them managed to delete multiple Ultimates at a time.

Meanwhile, Aegisdramon faced Jupitermon, unleashing volleys of missiles at the leader of the Olympus XII while the god struck with fists and special attacks.

"Ma Bolt!" Jupitermon shouted out, unleashing a massive lightning bolt against Aegisdramon, who felt massive amounts of electricity go through his body, shorting out a number of his systems.

"We've got to do something now. He's got an elemental advantage over us," Kenta told his partner, who responded with a number of pi's.

As the giant cyborg rose up, he decided to go all out, unleashing numerous volleys of missiles against Jupitermon. "Shine Breaker!"

The god, after sustaining large amounts of damage, responded with strikes from his fists, going along the hull of the entire machine digimon and hurting him.

"Come on!" Kenta shouted from inside his partner's Mega II form, feeling the pain as he did so.

Then the attack came to a standstill and Jupitermon just stopped before floating over to Aegisdramon, who was more than ready to fight him off. The god then proceeded to rip off both the bomb on his back and the dark bangle that was attached to his arm.

"Hey, Kurita, what's the status of the Digimon Emperor's territory?" the shorter man asked from inside his partner. This strange behavior from Jupitermon made him wonder if the Emperor had suddenly lost the ability to control Megas.

The blond heard from an open window. He pulled out his digivice immediately, panicking slightly as he did so nervously. Then he turned on the holographic projection and checked out the map. He then scanned the nearest spire, which was more than a kilometer. "Uh, it's at about 74%. The output is at about the same for the entire empire although the territory still looks like it's shrinking."

Kenta thought about that. "No way, so that means that… His empire's collapsing on itself or something," the shorter man stuttered.

"Yes, it would seem that way," Jupitermon said in a baritone.

Kurita thought of a reason for that and decided to voice it to Kenta. "Maybe when the power gets down to a certain level, the Emperor can no longer control higher-leveled digimon. Plus, the spires on the outskirts are all being disabled."

Kenta nodded and so did Jupitermon. "That fight sure was anti-climactic," he said, somewhat thankful that it was, actually.

"Unfortunately, the Emperor had another trick up his sleeve," the gold-armored god commented.

Kurita didn't like the sound of that, so he checked his digivice for any digimon of extraordinary power level. There was a signal headed straight for them, a huge one. "Oh, crap!"

"You can detect it?" Jupitermon asked before speaking with tinges of guilt. "I helped build it. Of course, that was against my will, but still…"

"What is it?" Kurita asked, getting out of the train. The battle was slowly coming to an end and he figured that it wouldn't go near him. Of course, there were bound to be numerous digimon along other parts of the border as well as digimon that were still crossing over from the other side of the Emperor's lands, but he would worry about them later. The heavy man needed to know about this.

Jupitermon's tone was flat. "An unholy fusion of four digimon: Darkdramon, BanchoLeomon, Valdurmon and Sleipmon, UltimateChaosmon."

"Oh, crap," Kenta said from inside Aegisdramon, feeling complete dread from the sight of such a powerful digimon.

"Wait, so it's the fusion of those four digimon. I don't even recognize the names," Kurita told Kenta.

"We encountered two Chaosmon on two different occasions," Kenta explained, his voice trembling. "They… they were some of the most deadly digimon we've ever come across. The first, a regular Chaosmon was the battle when I first biomerged. Then we came across Chaosmon Valdur Arm. Kazu almost didn't make it out of that one. He got a higher form out of it, but he was still unable to move until Kuzuhamon came and cured him. If this guy's a fusion of four of them… We're screwed."

"What is it about them that makes them so powerful?" Kurita asked and Jupitermon answered.

"They're unstable Mega IIs. In fact, their very existence threatens the Digital world." The god clenched his fists. He hated that he made them.

"Yeah, when we met Chaosmon, we thought he was just another Omnimon knockoff," Kenta said.

"Well, we'll have to take this guy on ourse…" Kurita heard a blood-curdling scream in the background and turned to see something come across the plains, seemingly coming in and out of existence. The heavy man swore in German before covering his mouth.

The creature that was tearing through the lines of digimon, deleting many of them and loading their data, was a massive conglomeration of parts, looking like they came together haphazardly. It had multiple limbs, wings, a couple of dragon heads and numerous smaller limbs coming from the bottom, which could barely be considered a body. The creature also had a pair of orbs that the other parts surrounded. Not to mention, it was massive. The digimon that it attacked all screamed as they were torn apart and loaded into it.

"UltimateChaosmon, Tier III Mega, No Attribute, Attacks: Broken Destroy, Ultima Burst," Kurita read in horror from his digivice. "Oh crap… This is absolutely nuts!"

###

Takato felt the presence of the powerful enemy digimon through Gallantmon and turned to see the abomination that was UltimateChaosmon, tearing digimon apart piece by piece. The goggle-headed Tamer also noticed that the ground below the unique digimon was gone, destroyed by the abomination.

At that point, most of the Ultimate digimon were now taken out, so he decided he had to face the Emperor's most powerful weapon. He had heard about it from Kurita, but he had no idea what it was until now. "Guys, go after that thing and go all out!" Takato shouted.

The rest nodded from inside their Mega forms, realizing that there was a chance that they wouldn't have the power needed to take on the Emperor himself after this was all over.

Now was the time.

"Gallantmon mode change! Crimson Mode!"

"Sakuyamon mode change! Kabuki Mode!" The shaman's new form was that of a white-clad miko wearing red trousers, ready to perform whatever rituals were needed.

"Justimon digivolve to… Fujinmon!" The Kamen Rider digimon's new form was that of a green-armored warrior with a ring coming out of his back as well as massive blades for arms.

"HiAndromon digivolve to… Craniamon!" The Android's new form was that of a silver-armored knight with a massive sword as well as armor all over his body.

Only MegaGargomon was without a new form to take on UltimateChaosmon with. Still, they acted together, ready to prevent any more deaths at the hands of that world's Digimon Emperor.

"Quo Vadis!" Gallantmon Crimson Mode yelled, unleashing a beam of red light intended to convert UltimateChaosmon into electrons.

"Amethyst Wind!" Sakuyamon Kabuki Mode yelled out, unleashing a volley of pink cherry blossoms.

"Mega Barrage!" MegaGargomon yelled, unleashing all his ammo against the enemy in a single shot.

"Marut Cyclone!" Fujinmon shouted, spinning into UltimateChaosmon with his arms extended, slicing into the extremely powerful digimon's body.

"Shock Ringer!" Craniamon called out, spinning his sword at high speed and slicing through UltimateChaosmon's body.

"Shine Breaker!" Aegisdramon yelled, unleashing every single missile he had against the massive abomination.

"Ma Bolt!" Jupitermon shouted, releasing as much energy as he possibly could against the abomination. And he wasn't the only one. Every single digimon in the area, ranging from the newly-freed Champions and Ultimates to the scattered Megas amongst the group unleashed every attack they possibly could. Even LoaderLiomon and DoruGreymon were in on the action, attacking the unique digimon.

"Broken Destroy!" the abomination yelled, destroying hundreds of digimon easily. Their screams echoed through the early-morning air. However, even if that was meant to frighten his enemies, it backfired since all it did was spur the massive army of digimon to continue on with their attacks. The Unique digimon didn't stand a chance as it was torn asunder by the multitude until it had so many hole in its body and in its twin digicores that it couldn't maintain its form any longer and disintegrated.

The battle was over.

###

After everything was said and done, Jupitermon promised the Tamers that he would guide the multitude so that every vestige of the Emperor's cruel reign was gone. In the meantime, Takato and his team rode the Trailmon along the deep rifts that UltimateChaosmon had caused. The trail ultimately led them to the Emperor's citadel, a large black fortress along the shore. It was at about noon by the time they reached it and when the train stopped in front of the obsidian fortress, the team had an unexpected visitor waiting for them: Kuzuhamon.

"You made it," the purple-clad shaman said, smiling.

"Yeah, the Emperor made a last-ditch attempt to destroy the digital world," Takato told Kuzuhamon as he got off along with Guilmon.

"The other areas weren't quite so lucky, I'm afraid," the purple-clad Mega remarked.

"What about the Emperor?" Ryo inquired, standing alongside Monodramon.

Kuzuhamon remained silent for a couple seconds. "Unfortunately, when I got here, the rest of the Digimon that had endured under his rule had arrived as well. And they were tearing the Emperor apart, limb from limb." The team gasped in horror.

Rika shook her head. "Even though he was such a horrible ruler, he may have been influenced by a dark spore. We should have at least attempted to remove that."

"That means he's dead. What about the body?" Henry inquired, feeling queasy from the thought of the Emperor getting killed like that.

"Unfortunately, much like digimon when they die, he disintegrated into nothingness," the purple-clad Mega responded, sadness in her voice.

"There had to be another way," Ryo said, remembering what he had heard about the effects of Milleniummon's spores upon his old friend Ken.

"Unfortunately… He's gone," Kuzuhamon told the group.

###

Back in the present, the team looked upon the purple-clad Mega in shock at what they had just heard. "After that, I took Takato and his team to the Dimensional Corridor, from which they went back home to their digital world. At the same time, Kurita and Rinchei decided to check the Dark Ocean for any sign of Akihiro Kurata or the Dimension Key."

"So, we came all this way for nothing…" Tadashi mumbled. _And they're adults too… Wait, was _that _what the old clock guy said was going to turn me evil? _The blond stood for a few minutes, thinking about that and hoping that such a reaction to the revelation of the fate of Takato's team may have been averted.

"You can't say that it was all for nothing," Ayaka assured him with a smile. "At least we defeated Dagomon and stopped the Emperors indirectly."

The blond boy nodded back. "Yeah, I guess you're right. And that helped Takato and the others too," he concluded. "If we hadn't done that, they would still be stuck fighting the Emperor that they went up against."

"Yeah, all that's left is for us to go to Abby's world and stop her brother," Coronamon told his partner.

"Sounds like a good idea to me. Let's get going!" Tadashi cheered the team. However, when he looked at them, he realized that they were all exhausted.

"How about this: since this world is a lot faster than ours timewise, why don't we relax here for a day?" Ed suggested.

"Sounds like a good idea to me!" Miki exclaimed.

"Definitely," Gunter said, grinning.

"Maybe we can go to the beach or something," Ayaka suggested.

"You know, the Emperor's digivice looks like it's right by the beach," Ed informed the group.

"That's because the Emperor's fortress was along the shore. If you want, I can teleport you there," Kuzuhamon suggested.

"Alright!" the team exclaimed, happy to get a free day off.

###

As soon as they got to the beach, the boys and girls went to separate changing rooms to shower and change into swimsuits. While showering, Ed and Gunter had a bit of a conversation while Tadashi listened on. There were partitions between their showers so they didn't have to see anything they didn't' want to.

"So, what if instead of going swimming, we went looking for the Emperor's digivice?" Gunter suggested, rubbing soap over his chest.

"That sounds like a good idea. Nothing like an old-fashioned scavenger hunt, right?" the heavy American replied enthusiastically while washing his hair. _Plus, that way I might delay talking to Abby for a little bit._

Tadashi just shrugged. "I don't know. I just want to relax."

"Yeah, but here's the thing: I don't trust Kuzuhamon. Heck, she kidnapped Takato and the others, right?" Gunter asked, grinning despite the lack of eye contact.

"You know, neither do I," Ed informed the large German the next shower over as he shut off his faucet.

"What are we going to do if we have to confront her? Go Mega?" Tadashi inquired.

"Hey, if we have to... We all know how to do it so it's only a matter of time before someone does it, right?" Gunter responded, grinning wider.

Ed was drying off his back as he thought about it. "How about we try to avoid running into her or any of her soldiers?"

"Yeah, it'll be just like in those spy games where we can't get caught by the enemy!" Gunter exclaimed, looking forward to it. "Come on, Tadashi, let's go, man!"

"I think I'll just relax in my room," the blond replied, struggling with his self-doubts.

"Come on! You've got all day! What's the rush?" the brown-haired teen asked.

Ed put his towel around the waist and opened up the shower door. "Just leave him alone. He doesn't have to come if he doesn't want to," the black-haired boy responded.

"Okay, if you insist." The German turned off his faucet and walked out of the shower after wrapping his towel around his waist.

Tadashi was glad to have Ed as a friend, even if he was the son of Antonio, one of his least favorite people. Still, he decided he would reevaluate that position.

He just hoped that everything would go well from now on.

###

Ayaka was really enjoying the fresh, salty air as she submerged herself in the warm ocean water. The girl definitely needed to relax after all they'd been through. True, she did feel a little bit guilty because they didn't go straight for Abby's world, but she figured they'd do that as soon as possible anyway.

"Hey, why don't you take those things off?" the blonde heard Miki ask.

"Uh, that's because I'm pretty much blind without them," Abby responded, not liking that the dark-haired girl had asked her that question.

"Oh, come on, live a little!" the dark-haired girl exclaimed, reaching for the glasses but getting pushed away at the last second. "Hey, you want Ed to go out with you, right?" Miki asked, folding her arms after getting rebuffed by Abby.

"You know, I'm not sure kissing him was a good idea," the brunette told her. "Ever since I did that, he's been avoiding me and… I'm afraid I ruined our friendship."

Ayaka had almost forgotten about that kiss. Still, she felt she had some advice. "Did you try talking to Ed?" she inquired.

Abby gave a forlorn look. "No, not really. Still, it's almost like he makes sure that he's not in the same room as I am."

The blonde nodded. "Why don't we talk to him together?" she asked with a smile. The brunette smiled back a little bit.

"Okay, it's just that I'm so nervous. When do you want to do that?" Abby inquired, shaking slightly from the thought.

"Well, where is Ed right now?" the blonde asked.

"I think he went with Gunter to explore the Emperor's fortress," Miki responded. "In my opinion, it's just some old building. If you've seen one, you've seen them all."  
"Hey, it wouldn't hurt to look for them, right?" Ayaka said. "Come on, Salamon, let's go find the boys."

The trio didn't notice the tall black figure watching from the shadows.

###

"This is a bit creepy," Abby commented as the trio walked down into the Emperor's basements.

"Yeah, but the digivice signals are this way. I guess they were trying to find the Emperor's digivice," Ayaka replied, holding her D-Arc and scanning for the boys.

The group was walking through a dungeon area made of dab grey bricks, lit up by flickering light bulbs. Also, there were a large number of cobwebs on the walls. "Come on, they've got to be here somewhere," Miki complained. "I swear, I didn't get enough sun for a tan and now we're on a scavenger hunt for two of the boys."

"Don't worry, there's plenty of sunlight left. You'll get some later," Ayaka told the dark-haired girl as they continued their walk. Eventually, they found a door that led to where Ed and Gunter were at. The blond opened the door, ready for anything.

Inside, they found the two boys sitting on the ground with their partners, bound and gagged. The three girls immediately went straight for the boys and undid the ropes.

"What happened to you guys?" Abby asked as soon as she took off the tape covering Ed's face.

"We were just wandering around down here, looking for the Emperor's digivice, when we got ambushed by some Ninjamon," Ed responded, panicked.

"Ninjamon?" Abby asked, looking around.

"Yeah, man, whatever they were guarding down here, they definitely don't want us to see it," Gunter exclaimed.

Ayaka turned around with a determined expression. "Guys, we're going to have to digivolve our partners," she said. "Ready Salamon?" The dog nodded.

"Salamon digivolve to… D'Arcmon!"

The other two girls had their partners digivolve as well.

"Syakomon digivolve to… Ranamon!"

"Cutemon digivolve to… Rabbitmon!"

As soon as they were untied, Ed and Gunter did the same thing.

"Prokyomon digivolve to… Guepardomon!"

"Keramon digivolve to… Chrysalimon!"

The five moved out of the room, hoping that their partners were strong enough to go against whatever enemies moved against them. The team headed straight for the location of the Emperor's digivice, walking down stairs and heading through empty halls. It was when they reached the lowest levels that they were almost ambushed again. This time, however, the team managed to defeat the squad of Ninjamon and Igamon en masse, being careful not to kill any of them.

Then they found the room where the digivice was and they discovered something that shocked them. "What the… Is that the Emperor?"

Surely enough, Samuel Krenzel, the former Digimon Emperor of World 6-1 was strapped to the wall, wearing nothing but a pair of grey boxer-briefs. He also had scabs all along his body as well as a number of open sores. It was obvious what was happening: he was being tortured down there.

Gunter decided to do a scan with his digivice. "He's got a dark spore in his neck," the muscular German informed the group.

"This is horrible!" Ayaka exclaimed.

Abby shook her head as well. "Rabbitmon, devolve back to Cutemon and heal him, please," she ordered her partner.

"Man, what the heck is going on?" Gunter asked no one in particular, turning away from the horrific sight.

"Kuzuhamon lied about the Emperor. That witch!" Miki exclaimed. "I mean, he's as ugly as sin and he obviously screwed over this world for 400 years, so he probably deserved it but…"

"Nobody deserves torture," Ed told her, his voice icy and cold. "Plus, did you hear about the Dark Spore? That means that he wasn't in complete control over his actions."

Miki recoiled in fear at Ed's response. Then the group heard footsteps. A large, black, humanoid digimon walked in. His legs were thick at the top and his black armor gave him extremely broad shoulders, making his head look extremely small. The digimon looked as shocked as the group of Tamers was.

"Well, I'll be… The Emperor is still alive," the mystery digimon stated.

"Okay, who are you?" Gunter asked.

"I'm sorry, my name is Plutomon and I was sent by Jupitermon to investigate Kuzuhamon's activities. It seems she has concealed much from us." The digimon spoke in a regal voice and was surprisingly polite, considering he was named after the Roman god of the underworld.

"Are you an Olympus XII digimon?" Ayaka asked.

The Mega nodded. "Indeed, I am, though I am only substituting until Jupitermon can get the group back to full power again. After that, I will head straight for my own realm like I prefer." The dark digimon turned to the fallen emperor. "We must get him out of here. And you as well…"

"We can do that," Ayaka said, grabbing her digivice.

"You will do no such thing," the team heard from the other side of the door. Kuzuhamon was standing right there, her staff in hand, ready to strike. The woman smirked before hitting Plutomon with the staff, sending him into a nearby wall. The godlike digimon got up, angry.

"What you're doing here is wrong," Ayaka told the Mega.

"Actually, it's a good punishment. Samuel Krenzel will suffer for 400 years because he had made this world suffer for just as long," the purple-clad Mega stated.

"If Jupitermon found out about this…" Plutomon mumbled, getting up.

"Then what? I'd just move my base of operations elsewhere," Kuzuhamon told him.

Ayaka grabbed her digivice. "Super Digivolution Activate!"

"D'Arcmon digivolve to… Sanzomon!" she shouted.

"Oh, please, as if you can actually defeat me with one Ultimate," the purple-armored Mega taunted.

"That wasn't what I was going to do," Ayaka said. Then the five Tamers, their partners, the former Emperor and Plutomon were gone, disappeared. Kuzuhamon cursed them under her breath.

###

Tadashi was busy napping with Coronamon while everything happened downstairs. Unfortunately, his nap was interrupted when he felt himself lying in hot sand, immediately causing him to get up and try to wipe away the sand.

"Okay, tell me what's going on!" he yelled before noticing the mostly-naked fat man that Plutomon was holding. Thankfully, he couldn't see much. Still, it was a horrific sight. "And where did he come from?"

"Kuzuhamon was torturing the Emperor," Ayaka informed him, angrily. "Great, and now we have to get out of this world somehow without that witch knowing."

"So much for a vacation," Miki complained.

"And knowing that psycho, she's probably going to be guarding the Dimensional Corridor too," Gunter deduced, shuddering at the possibility.

"If I may be of assistance," Plutomon told the group. "I am a temporary member of the Olympus XII and I know of a few alternative routes through the dimensional fabric of the digital world that will lead to your digital world."

"What?" Ayaka asked, confused. "You mean the Dimensional Corridor isn't the only way?"

"Of course not! How else do you think the Emperor came here along with Dagomon's forces? They didn't come through the Corridor, did they? Believe me, Heimdallmon would have had a fit about that one, knowing him," the godlike digimon responded.

Thinking about it, it made perfect sense, especially since the Emperor's forces were being powered through those alternative routes. "So, how are we going to get there?" Tadashi asked.

The godlike digimon flicked his fingers and they were teleported again in a flash of darkness, this time to a dark, damp place. Nearby was a dark grey river and a boat was pulling up, with a red-cloaked Phantomon at the helm. "Hello, Charon, I have a request for you today," the god told his ally.

"Oh, is that the case?" the cloaked digimon asked in a surprising Brooklyn accent. "So, let's see, you want me to take these kids somewhere, huh?"

"Yes, exactly. I will pay you once you get back," Plutomon said.

"What world are you going to, huh?" Charon the Phantomon inquired, hovering over his boat.

"World 5-0," Tadashi told the digimon.

"World 5-0 it is, then. All aboard!" the cloaked digimon said.

"Oh, and can somebody put some clothes on that guy?" Miki asked as they boarded the boat and Plutomon placed Samuel next to her.

"You know, she does have a point," Gunter said.

Plutomon thought about it for a second before teleporting again, then teleporting back with a black robe. "Here, put this on him," the godlike digimon told the group and they did so. Samuel was almost completely comatose during the entire operation.

"You know, I almost feel sorry for him," Miki said.

The group nodded. "Don't worry, we will make sure that Kuzuhamon is brought to justice for her crimes," Plutomon told them as Charon started to paddle the group. "Good luck on your journey!"

The team continued floating along until they could no longer see the shore behind them. The Phantomon that was carrying them stopped eventually at a part of the shore where there was a door, simply standing there in the middle of the sand. "Here we are. The door to World 5-0."

"Wow, that's it?" Ayaka asked as they disembarked.

"Yes it is. What were you expecting? A fancy portal like the one Heimdallmon has? Get out of here!" The team got off the boat and the ferryman floated away from them, heading back upstream.

"Well, here we are," Tadashi said, moving toward the door.

"So, where do you think it's going to take us in Abby's world?" Coronamon asked out of curiosity.

"There's only one way to find out," the blond said, turning the doorknob and exiting into another beach. Once everyone got through, the blond spoke again. "Okay, guys, we're going to have to go after the Emperor before something happens to him like with Sam over here."

"So, how are we going to get there?" Abby asked. "Can Sanzomon teleport us there?"

"Unfortunately, I can only teleport you to places I have already been," the monk told the brunette.

Before volunteering to have her mind read by Sanzomon so she could take them directly to the Emperor's fortress, Abby heard Gunter shout something. "Uh, guys, what's that over there?" Gunter pointed in the direction of the Emperor's castle. There was a wave of blue energy headed straight for them.

"I don't know, but don't you think we should take shelter?" Ayaka inquired as it headed straight for them.

"Where _can _we hide?" Miki asked. There were no caves around them or any sort of shelter period.

Ed was running along with Abby and their partners. But none of them could outrun it as the wave struck.

###

A/N: A lot of the Tamers had new forms in this chapter. Some of those forms are the alternate modes (Sakuyamon's Kabuki Form, for instance) and others are plain digivolutions, some with semi-canon basis (Craniamon and Fujinmon are digivolutions for HiAndromon and Justimon in a game) and others that don't but are interesting ideas anyway (Aegisdramon as a higher form for MarineAngemon).

The idea for the second tier of the Mega level comes from the fact that there are a lot of digimon that are still Megas but are clearly digivolved forms of Megas already (Omnimon and Chaosmon) and yet aren't considered Super-Ultimates (Omnimon in V-Tamer is a good example).

As for what that wave is, you'll find out at the end of next chapter.


	29. The Unification Wave

Chapter 29: The Unification Wave

###

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

###

He didn't like sleeping on park benches, but he did because he had nowhere else to go after being kicked out of his house for being a Tamer. He really missed his warm bed and seeing his parents, but he couldn't go back to that now. Instead, he was on the bench, waking up sore from a restless night.

Perhaps he should have taken up the offers of his teammates to stay at their houses. After all, it wasn't as if he had anywhere else to go.

He stretched out as he sat up, trying to get rid of a cramp in his back. "Okay, so anything go on?" he asked his partner, a samurai-like digimon that was standing next to his bench.

"No. Some hoodlums approached your bench, but they didn't try anything," Kotemon responded.

His partner, a black male of about thirteen smiled at him. "Good to hear, buddy," he responded, pulling out his backpack from under the seat and putting his blue hat on.

"So, what are we going to do today, master?" Kotemon inquired.

"Today? Well, I was just thinking of finding a place to cool off, maybe go swimming." The black kid wiped the sweat off his brow. "Yeah, we got to get out of this heat, man!" He also felt his stomach gurgle. It was time to head to a fast food place for some breakfast.

That was when his partner stopped for a second before turning around. Kotemon's Tamer just looked back to see a really muscular blond man walking toward him with a red, dragon-like digimon close behind. "Hi, you must be Matthias!" the blond greeted.

"Call me Matt," the black kid responded, his hand reaching toward his digivice.

"Oh, okay, Matt. The name's Mr. Immortal and I'm the he…" The blond was interrupted by Matt.

"No way, man! That's insane! I didn't know that I was even important enough for Mr. Immortal to even notice me!" The black boy's smile was extremely wide. "Don't tell me you're here to rescue me from being homeless or something."  
The blond chuckled for a second before speaking again. "Uh, yeah, in a way. I'm recruiting people to help with something called the Tamers' Brigade. It's just a little side-project."

"Yeah, you can join if you want," Shoutmon added.

"Sounds cool. So, where's this Tamer Brigade meet, anyway?" Matt inquired.

"Um, master, are you sure this is a good idea?" Kotemon asked, pulling onto his partner's sleeve.

"Oh, heck yeah, it is!" Matt exclaimed, overjoyed at the prospect of getting out of this heat.

Mr. Immortal grinned back. "I have a way of getting to the Brigade Compound instantaneously," the blond said, pulling out his digivice and pressing a few buttons. "Just hold on tight."

In an instant, they were gone.

###

"I can't believe it. He had a list with a hundred names on it and he only got twenty," Katarina complained angrily to Muchomon as she watched the Tamer of Forever play a game of basketball with some of the kids he gathered together.

"Well, he can't win them all. Plus, it's their choice," the red bird replied. He was bored out of his skull waiting alongside his partner of eight years.

"But still, how could they refuse him?" the Greek woman objected. "He's smart, he's cool and he's considered the number one Tamer according to Echelon."

Muchomon found that hard to believe. "He hasn't even reached Champion again yet," he objected.

"But he got to Mega before," the twenty-seven year-old responded. "Still, that doesn't change the fact that a lot of those kids that turned him down were all homeless."  
The woman shut up when she saw Antonio walk up to the doorway where she was leaning against a bulkhead. He was wearing a light-blue dress-shirt and a dark-blue tie along with some black pants and dress shoes.

"So, who's winning?" the curly-haired Chilean inquired before biting into a protein bar. The Greek woman just shrugged.

"I honestly have no idea. I've never really even paid attention to basketball that much," Katarina replied. "I would assume Mr. Immortal would have to be the one winning, though."

Antonio chuckled a little bit in disbelief. "You really worship him, don't you?"

The brown-skinned woman glanced over at the Chilean in surprise. "Well, I don't really."

"Okay, I'll have to tell you that although Al's 4000 years old, he's never really been a sports person," Antonio explained to her. "In fact, he looks like he's just hanging around on the sidelines."

Katarina was surprised. The fat man was right. "And you are?"

Antonio shook his head. "I play a game from time to time and I'm a bit more involved, but I've always been more of a soccer guy than a basketball guy." Then the heavy man chuckled a bit. "Now, it's definitely a sight to see when he's playing that one. He's always lazily playing defender." At one point, he accidentally let Mr. Immortal's real name slip instead of a pronoun.

The woman rolled her eyes. "And you call yourself his friend…"

Antonio smirked before laughing. "Hey, just 'cause I'm his friend doesn't mean I don't notice his faults. He's a quirky guy and he's definitely not perfect despite living for 4000 years."

"And his name's …?" the woman inquired, surprised at that one.

"I take it you were expecting something more exotic like En Sabah Nur?" the heavy man joked. Katarina was just confused since she didn't understand the reference. Noting this, Antonio decided to explain himself. "It's the birth name of Apocalypse from X-Men."

"You're a comic book person?" the woman asked. _Maybe that's why you're not married._

"Not really. Just caught the 90's cartoon," Antonio explained to her and she chuckled a bit.

"Well, they do say that we nerds will take over the world someday," Katarina joked, causing Antonio to smile.

"I guess. So, what do you do at Saxum?" the heavy man asked.

"This and that. Mainly I monitor the skies of Barcelona for digital anomalies as well as write up various programs while I do that to help with the workload," the Greek woman explained.

"Hmm… interesting. My friend Gorou actually monitors activities in Tokyo part of the time and that's what he said he does," Antonio confirmed.

Katarina was surprised. "Isn't he the one who woke up from a coma just before the D-Reaper invasion began?" she inquired, her mouth open in amazement. She could not believe that Antonio could possibly know Shibumi.

"Oh yeah, we were actually roommates in college. He encouraged me to major in Computer Science," the curly-haired man explained. "After all, having that wrestling scholarship only got me so far."

The woman looked dumbfounded. "You wrestled?"

"Oh yeah, though I don't really fit into my old wrestling uniform anymore," Antonio admitted, clenching his teeth. "Believe me; you wouldn't want to see me in one anyway."

"No, you wouldn't." The duo glanced over at Mr. Immortal who was sweating like a pig and panting. "I hate basketball."

"You barely did anything," the heavy man remarked with a scowl on his face before switching to a smile. "Well, it's good to know that despite you having lived so long, there's something I'm definitely better at."

The blond's eyes widened. "Alright. Well, I guess I'll start training these kids a bit more tomorrow and hopefully even get Shoutmon to Champion… finally."

"You go do that," Muchomon said from on the ground.

"Well, I'll see you around, Katarina," the heavy man told the dark-skinned woman with a smile.

"Yeah, see you later," she responded, smiling slightly herself. She and Muchomon watched as the duo walked off, apparently about to discuss something related to the Brigade.

"Why don't you get with him? You're never going to get Mr. Immortal to marry you, anyway?" the plump red bird asked, getting a shudder from the Greek girl.

"Um, look at him. He's not what I call attractive," Katarina replied to her digimon. Then again, the digimon probably didn't know too much about what humans found attractive.

"But you get along, right? Plus, who knows, maybe he'll actually ask you out," Muchomon responded suavely.

###

"By the way, man, I found something while looking through the files to translate," Antonio told the man as soon as he reached the locker where he kept his normal clothes. The blond immortal glanced at his friend with a curious look.

"What did you find?" Mr. Immortal inquired. He hadn't looked at the files for the Regeneration program for thousands of years, so he had very little idea about what the heavy Chilean was talking about. There were so many sub-programs that he'd forgotten about them.

"What does the program named do?" Antonio asked. Mr. Immortal's eyes widened at the revelation.

"That…" The man took off his shirt and paused for a brief second. "That's something you shouldn't translate. It was an idea I had for in case I didn't have my partner with me, but it's incredibly dangerous. Spirit Evolution's by far a safer alternative."

Antonio wasn't too surprised. His friend actually explained to him what Spirit Evolution was one time so he already knew about that. "The comments said that testing the program revealed a number of faults that needed to be corrected."

"Yeah, and I didn't have time to correct them," the blond replied. "I developed that program during my last days traveling with the Watchmaker." He chuckled a bit. "Wow, and to think I tested it."

"What does it do?" the black-haired man inquired, frowning.

"It gives you the strength of a Mega-level digimon but at the same time it causes massive cellular decay due to the power output. The one time I tested it, I had to turn it off after two minutes once I realized the arm that I was using had gone numb and was starting to turn grey." The blond shuddered at the long-suppressed memory before taking off the rest of his clothes and heading into the shower. Antonio decided that was time to exit the locker-room.

At least he knew not to translate that program from Python to DevScript.

###

Outside the locker-room, Antonio ran into Katarina again. The woman was obviously hoping for Mr. Immortal, but that didn't happen. "Is he coming out soon?"

"Give him at least five minutes," the heavy man responded. "Have you seen my partner anywhere?"

The dark woman shook her head. "No, I haven't."

"I think Veemon was playing with the other digimon," Muchomon informed.

"Oh, okay." The man then hurried off before stopping partway down the hall. He then turned around and asked a question. "Are you doing anything tonight?"

The woman was surprised. "Um, no, why?"

"Ι'm going to a friend's house for dinner, if you'd like to come," Antonio responded.

"Sorry, I'd rather not," Katarina replied.

"Okay, suit yourself. Have a good evening," the heavy man said, turning around and running off. As he ran, Katarina found her partner elbowing her leg, prompting a glare from the dark-skinned Greek woman.

"You should have gone," the bird teased her and she rolled her eyes.

"Katarina?" The woman turned around to see Mr. Immortal who had a worried expression on his face. "I got a message from Jeri Katou. Kurita got arrested and is now in Hypnos custody."

The woman had a look of shock on her face. "What? Why?"

"Apparently his brother told them he was helping me," the ancient man explained. He had a decision to make. "Did you see Antonio?"

"Yeah, he's headed off to pick up Veemon and go home," the woman explained. She didn't know Kurita, but she figured that the eighteen-year-old was important to the team. "You want me to come with?"

"Sure," Mr. Immortal responded. Despite their tension, he actually liked having the woman around, though he'd prefer that she stop pursuing him. "And Antonio's good friends with Mizuno, so he should be able to help as well."

The woman nodded. This was going to be interesting.

The duo headed straight for where Antonio's partner was supposed to be, namely the courtyard which had a playground built for the digimon as well as any poor kids who were young enough to want to play on them. Then again, the teenagers didn't seem to mind messing around on the jungle gyms either.

However, Antonio wasn't there. Instead, the duo encountered Matt who stopped them. "Hey, what up, you guys?" he asked, smiling widely.

"Not much, we're just here to pick up Antonio," Mr. Immortal explained, somewhat in a hurry. He still didn't know what to think of the delinquent in front of him.

"Antonio? I'm not sure if I met him yet," the black kid remarked, scratching his chin. "What does he look like?"

"He's a big heavy guy with curly black hair," the Forever Tamer responded and Matt's eyes lit up.

"Oh, him, yeah, he just left by teleport. Man, I swear I've seen him before. So, when can I get one of those?" the black kid asked with a pleading smile. "Come on, it'll be great. First stop: Amsterdam!"

The two adults rolled their eyes at the kid. "Okay, we need to catch up with him because there's an emergency in Japan," Mr. Immortal explained.

"Emergency? Japan? Can I come?" Matt inquired, ecstatic. He had always wanted to go to Japan.

"Yes, it will be good training," the kid's partner Kotemon added in a stereotypical samurai voice.

The digimon had a point though Mr. Immortal had an idea for a first mission for the Brigade that didn't involve fighting, but rather entailed helping out people dealing with floods in India.

Then again, Matt seemed kind of antsy. "Okay, you can come along. First stop is Chile, though," Mr. Immortal replied, getting a smile from Katarina.

"Chile? That's pretty cool. I wonder if I'll see my old buddy Eddy over there," the black kid told himself. Mr. Immortal wondered if he was talking about Antonio's son, but he didn't push it.

###

Unfortunately for the duo, by the time the attempted to contact Antonio, he had apparently went straight home and left, leaving his digivice behind for Veemon to answer it. It only took the heavy man about ten minutes to travel to his friend's house by motorcycle.

Strangely, the man couldn't keep his mind off of Katarina's rejection. He didn't intend to ask her out. In fact, he just asked the girl to come with him as a friend.

Soon, he reached the house, a simple two-story building in a somewhat better-off section of Santiago. The man then proceeded to walk up to the front of the house and knock. After hearing the words "Come in!" from inside in Spanish, he opened the door and spotted the friend he was visiting.

"How's it going?" Antonio greeted with a big smile. His friend was a lanky man with thinning, light-brown hair, blue eyes and a big nose who smiled back equally as wide.

"As good as can be," the man responded. "Come on, let's sit down and talk for a few minutes. Rosa's still making dinner." The man led Antonio into the living room; walking with a bit of a limp due to a gunshot wound he suffered a month and a half earlier. The man then plopped onto the couch.

"You recovering alright, Rafael?" the black-haired man inquired, getting a shrug.

"More or less. I feel more sorry for you," Rafael responded. "You lost your son that day."

"Lost track of him. Last I checked, he was in the digital world," Antonio responded. "It had to be worse for you, getting shot at like that."

"Right in the leg!" the man complained before grinning like crazy again and speaking rapidly. "Can you imagine my boss's reaction when he heard that I had to go to the hospital for it? Thankfully he was understanding and gave me paid leave."

Antonio nodded. "How's Gustavo doing?" he inquired.

Rafael smiled back at him. "Gus's doing well. Oh, that's something I wanted to talk to you about." The man then got up and walked over to the stairs that were in the entryway. "Gustavo! Come down here and bring your friend too!"

Antonio thought at first that the man was talking about Mario, but the blond Chilean kid game down with a different sort of friend. This one was pink with wings and claws, but despite those small appendages it was the definition of cute. "Oh, hey, Tonio, how are you doing today, sir?" the kid asked, using the formal form of address, usted.

"You don't have to be so formal," the heavy man responded, inviting the kid to use the tú form instead. "That's a digimon, isn't he?"

"Certainly," the pink thing responded. "Piximon at your service!"

Antonio recognized the thing as an Ultimate level. _How come Saxum didn't detect him? _"When did you meet this little guy?" the heavy man asked.

"Two days ago. I was walking home from school when this weird guy just handed him to me," Gus explained. The heavy man had a look of dread on his face.

"So, what do you think?" Rafael inquired. The look on the face gave the impression that the man was thinking: _Get this thing out of my house right now._

"Well, he seems friendly enough," Antonio responded to his friend of ten years. "Maybe your son can keep him but not fight enemy digimon. Does he have a digivice?"

"Oh, sure, I keep it on me all the time!" the kid exclaimed, going into his pocket and pulling out a pink digivice with a yellow ring in the middle. Antonio had to chuckle at that. "Don't like the color? Me neither. I was thinking of painting it red or something."

It was then that there was a knock at the door. The head of the household got up and headed for the door, despite his visible limp. The man opened it up to reveal a dark-skinned woman who he just guessed was a Mestizo, a blond man and a dark-haired kid of African descent that was about his son's age, something that wasn't seen often in Chile. The woman was holding up a badge identifying her as a Saxum operative.

"Oh, Saxum. You come here because you detected my son's digivice?" the man inquired, smiling but feeling like they were going to take his kid away.

"No, we're here for Antonio Guevara. Have you seen him?" the woman asked in a Castilian accent.

"Oh, yes! Antonio, a beautiful Spanish woman's here for you!" Rafael called into the house and Antonio walked up to the front door.

"Katarina?" he asked.

"It turns out there's a bit of an emergency," Mr. Immortal said in a Mexican accent. "Kurita got arrested by Hypnos."

The heavyset man was shocked. _Crap, and it was probably because I gave him Mr. Immortal's address._ "Alright. I guess this mean's I'll have to take a rain check, Rafael," Antonio told the man, disappointed.

"And by the way, I'm actually Greek, not Spanish. I just happen to live in Spain," the woman informed the brown-haired man with a smile.

"You two dating?" Rafael inquired, pointing at Antonio and Katarina, getting negatives from the two of them.

"He did ask me out earlier, but I politely declined," the woman replied, getting a bit of a dirty look from Antonio.

Antonio was taken aback by that. "I didn't ask you out. I just wanted to know if you wanted to hang out with me and some friends," the heavy man corrected.

"Oh, it seemed like you were asking me out to me," she responded.

"Can't we just get going?" Mr. Immortal requested, in a hurry. "I got Veemon with me along with your digivice." The group then walked out and away from Rafael's house.

"So, what's the plan, exactly?" Antonio inquired.

"Simple: I'm going to turn myself in," Mr. Immortal responded, adjusting his goggles, giving a determined smile and then punching in the coordinates on his digivice and teleporting the group to Japan.

###

An alarm got his attention during class, showing up as a vibration on his digivice. Ultimately, the program was a slight modification of one of Taizou's newest ones that was designed to notify any of the Tamers of a Rogue Tamer close by. Instead, Tadashi modified it slightly, with the unwitting help of Taizou, so that it searched for Antonio Guevara's presence as well. All it took was adding his name to a list variable inside the program.

Upon seeing what his digivice said, the blond asked to go to the bathroom and then headed straight out the school's front doors, running past a hall monitor who yelled out after him as he did so. He hoped that his plan worked and that he could finally get rid of the idiot that blighted his path to the digital world and to Takato and the others.

He checked the location of the Tamers and smiled.

###

It was late morning in Japan when Mr. Immortal and the three other Tamers and their partners arrived in front of the Hypnos building. The quartet immediately walked up to the front desk and, after getting directions from the startled receptionist up front, went up the elevator to the floor where Hypnos was located.

After it stopped, they walked out, determined. Luckily, Mizuno was the one in charge at that hour and he seemed to be up to very little other than designing a couple of new programs for the digivice.

The man noticed when the others came in. "Oh, hey," he greeted them with a smile. "Antonio! It's great to see you!"

The large man smiled back as well before embracing the man in a bear hug. "How's it going, Gorou?"

"Alright. So you heard about Kurita?" the man inquired, losing his smile.

"Yeah," Mr. Immortal said. "And I'm willing to turn myself in in exchange for his freedom." The man heard the door open behind him and turned slightly.

Mizuno nodded. "Unfortunately, something has happened. It turns out that…"

"Antonio! Watch out!" Katarina shouted and the heavy man barely got out of the way of the fire blast that nearly hit him. Soon after though, another fire blast headed straight for him, causing Antonio to brace himself. The attack never came. Instead, Mr. Immortal blocked it, destroying a large part of his right arm in the process, up to about half way between the elbow and the shoulder. Katarina screamed and so did Matt. The group looked over at the culprit and saw Tadashi, looking angry.

He hadn't expected the fat man to have allies and he hadn't expected Mr. Immortal to jump in front of him like that.

That made him angry. And his anger corrupted his crest of Hope into the crest of Rage.

"Flaremon digivolve to… Firamon Whispered!" Firamon had a blue hue instead of the orange hue of his normal vaccine counterpart. Also, his fire burned hotter and the digimon was completely feral and out of control.

And Mr. Immortal's digivice shined as well, causing his partner to digivolve.

**DIGIVOLUTION_**

"Shoutmon digivolve to… BlitzShoutmon!" The new form was yellow with a red stripe around his waist. Also, his V-Shaped ears changed slightly so that they resembled lightning bolts.

Matthias had never seen such a digimon before, so he took out his digivice to check out info on it. "BlitzShoutmon, Champion Level, Vaccine Attribute. Attacks: Flash Punch, Lightning Tornado. Far out, man!"

"No kidding," Antonio muttered as Mr. Immortal fell to the ground, passing out from the shock of having most of his arm blown off. In the meantime, the data inside his body worked to harvest massive amounts of muscle and fat cells, converting them into stem cells before rapidly regenerating the arm. Still, it took massive amounts of energy, so that meant that he was bound to be out for a while.

That gave BlitzShoutmon time to do his dirty work.

"So, you think that we should help? After all, he is only a Champion," Katarina inquired of Antonio.

"Sure, as long as your partner's higher forms aren't too big for this building," the heavy man responded. "It's alright with you, right Gorou?"

The strawberry blond turned to his old roommate and nodded. "Just try to take this battle out of the building. The whole incident means that Tadashi is to be classified as a Rogue Tamer."

"Alright, ready Kotemon? Super Digivolution Activate!" Matt yelled out, letting the crest of Tenacity to shine forth its white light from the orange and white digivice.

"Kotemon digivolve to… Asuramon!"

"Digivolution Activate!" Katarina shouted.

"Muchomon digivolve to… Flarerizamon!"

"It sucks that my forms are too big for this," Veemon commented.

"Don't worry, you'll get your turn," Antonio assured him. "By the way, Gorou, what did you want to tell us about Kurita?"

"He went missing. He just… disappeared and so did Rinchei," the man answered, disturbed.

Just then, BlitzShoutmon ran at Flaremon at an extremely high speed, arching his trajectory so that the humanoid lion was shot out the window and into the air. Then the dragon-man jumped back to the building, heading straight up as Flaremon followed him.

###

It took twelve hours for him to heal completely, though time passed far faster for him than anyone else around him. When he awoke, everyone was standing perfectly still. He knew exactly what was going on.

"Okay, Old Man, I know you're behind this," Mr. Immortal said. Unfortunately for him, he had lost most of his muscle mass and his shirt was now a couple sizes too big for him as well as his pants. He realized he'd need to stop by a store or at least put on a belt since his waist had gone down to 32 inches and he was having a hard time holding them up. He felt as if fifty years of working out and gaining muscle had gone to waste.

The Watchmaker showed up, seemingly out of thin air. Behind him was his partner's Ultimate form, Vremyamon. The digimon was a tall humanoid with copper armor and a small head that was barely visible above the shoulders and seemed to consist only of a couple of eyes underneath a small, brown helmet. The digimon was also holding a staff with a clock on the end and he was wearing a long, blue cape on his back.

"Oh, good, you're finally awake," the old man remarked.

"Yeah, you kind of helped with that, though I could really use a sandwich." The skinny blond tasted the inside of his mouth. "And a toothbrush."

"That will have to wait, unfortunately. I'm sure you deduced one of the reasons I had you set up the Tamers' Brigade."

"The Unification's coming, isn't it?" Mr. Immortal guessed, getting a nod from the old man.

"In fact, you're only about ten minutes away from it," the old man remarked, his face turning somber. "If you look closely, you can see shadows of the timeline that is about to be absorbed into this one."

He was right. Mr. Immortal noticed translucent ghosts of people walking around, mostly likely normal office workers working for an organization that simply scanned the net and looked at people's e-mails. "The other timeline doesn't have Tamers, does it?"

"It has three Digidestined, I guess you could say, along with the friends of one of the Digidestined, who I guess could be considered Tamers," the Watchmaker explained. "You realize that if you stay here during Unification, your alternate selves will all be absorbed into you as well, don't you?"

Mr. Immortal nodded somberly. "I was afraid of that."  
"That's why I'm taking you with me," the Watchmaker said. "Don't worry; you can bring Shoutmon as well. By the way, I have something else that I want to show you before I take you to the near future."

The blond turned to the old bearded man. "What is it? And why won't you take me just after the Unification?"

"You're holding them back, all of them. Pretty soon you'll be able to reach Mega and if you do that, the Triumvirate's armies won't stand a chance."  
"But that's a good thing, right?" Mr. Immortal asked, getting a shaking of the head in response.

"No, because in a number of possible scenarios… You die." The blond looked at the old man in shock as if it were some sort of impossibility. The truth was that despite the sorrows he had accumulated over the years, he enjoyed life. He enjoyed collecting things, learning new things about the world around him and meeting new people. Now he saw that that wasn't going to happen.

He frowned at the thought. No matter how bad life got, death was worse. At the same time, he knew there was no hell, so there wasn't a possibility of going there. Still, he couldn't stand the thought of not existing.

"What do you want to show me?" he asked.

"Come with me," the old man beckoned, leading his former traveling companion into the shop that had materialized inside Hypnos HQ.

###

A few minutes later, the two men were at a house. Mr. Immortal walked down the driveway, not knowing what to expect, but he knocked. He had to guess that he was in a fairly tropical region, but he had no idea where.

The door opened up and a brown-skinned woman answered. Mr. Immortal instantly recognized her as Katarina despite the addition of thirteen years and a few pounds. The woman suddenly dropped her phone at the sight of the man and hugged him.

"Mr. Immortal… You're alive!" she exclaimed before pulling back. "Where have you been all these years?"  
"The old man decided to take me to the future from just before the Unification," the blond explained. He was surprised to see everything like this. The woman nodded in understanding.

"I figured that was what happened," she responded, giving him a smile. "It's a shame I haven't amounted to much after the Triumvirate war ended."

"What… What have you been up to?" the blond inquired.

"Not much. I have a couple of kids from one of the timelines that merged into yours, two beautiful daughters and I had to take care of them. You remember Carlos, don't you?"

Mr. Immortal smiled. "Yeah, I remember how you broke up with him when he proposed to you."

"That was a regret that I may never let down, never mind that my parents wanted me to marry another Greek. Still, he left me in all those realities that I never met you in except for one where I married someone else." The woman was quite somber.

"You haven't married since then?" Mr. Immortal inquired, concerned for his friend.

She shook her head. "There was one man, but I simply couldn't let go of you, even though we had gotten so close. Last I checked on Facebook, he's still single too and he's a grandfather." She paused for a second. "That was probably my biggest regret, especially since we married in another reality and even had a son there. Now look at me. I'm old and you're still young."

Mr. Immortal snorted. "Forty is not old, Katarina. Now, if you asked me, I would tell you to call that man right now and tell him you want to start dating again."

The woman smiled. "I might try that, but I'm afraid." After a short pause, the woman took a deep breath and spoke to her friend. "You're traveling back in time, right?"

The blond nodded. "Why?"

"I want you to… to tell my past self to let go of you. Be tough with her. Tell her you hate her, even. I don't want her to make the same mistake I did."

Mr. Immortal didn't know what to think of that one, so he changed the subject. "How is everything between our world and the digital world?"

The woman's look became even more somber. "Not good. As far as we can tell, the digimon have gone almost completely extinct. It started after the end of the Triumvirate war when we all went back home. The anti-digimon groups had taken power and had gone as far as destroying as much of the digital world as possible."

Mr. Immortal stood in shock. After a couple seconds, he shook his head. "That's… that's genocide."

"They didn't care, especially not with that madman at the helm," the woman said. "They destroyed everything we accomplished."  
"Hey, time's up!" the Watchmaker called out.

"Remember what I told you to do to my past self," the woman said, her face getting serious. "Tell her you don't want a relationship. Don't make her suffer the same fate I have."

Mr. Immortal nodded before heading back to the Clock Shop.

###

A few seconds later, he was back in his old time, standing where he was lying without an arm. Instantly, Katarina ran over and hugged him tightly.

He knew what to do, so he pushed her away. He was really hating this.

"Mr. Immortal, what's wrong?" she asked, taken aback.

"I'll tell you what's wrong: you've been pursuing me all these years, letting relationships fail because you loved me and yet I don't love you back. I hate you!" He was a good actor. He had to be after four thousand years.

"What?" Katarina was completely dumbfounded. She wondered what had to have happened to him that made him do this.

"I finally realize everything wrong. You are a psychotic, narcissistic stalker who won't take no for an answer even though I said it so many times. Just give it up! You're never going to be in a relationship with me, Katarina!" She stood there in shock.

And so did Antonio. "What the heck was that?" he asked, flabbergasted. "Did you get replaced by some duplicate or something? You're not acting yourself!"

He looked at his best friend. "Antonio, while you're in the Digital World, you're going to be running the Tamers' Brigade."

"I thought you said we weren't going to bring the Brigade with us!" the heavy man objected.

"We won't have much of a choice. As soon as you arrive, find the nearest shelter that you can use as a base and tell the other Brigade members to head straight there," the blond ordered before disappearing.

Katarina was crying. Antonio headed straight for her. "He didn't mean any of that."

"He's right, you know. I am a creepy, obsessive stalker and I have let relationships go by because of that, good ones too." She shook her head.

Antonio hugged her, letting her cry into his shoulder as he looked on.

###

On the roof, the battle continued. "V-Breath Arrow!" AeroVeedramon yelled, aiming straight at the enemy digimon. Flaremon simply dodged, but the attack distracted him just enough to receive a tackle from Flarerizamon and another attack from Asuramon.

"Asura God-Fist!" the four-armed digimon yelled, punching Flaremon all over with his powerful limbs.

Then the lion received another series of fist strikes from a certain yellow blur, BlitzShoutmon. "Flash Punch!" the yellow dragon yelled.

Flaremon fell to the ground after that one. "Why don't you use your Ultimate form?" AeroVeedramon inquired of Katarina's partner.

"Simple, that's because my Ultimate form is too slow and can't jump or dodge so easily," Flarerizamon. "Of course, if this digimon ends up grounded, I might use that form. Just gotta ask the missus for permission.

The lion-like Flaremon still got up before shooting more blue flames, despite the amount of damage he had already taken. "Can't this guy just give up?" AeroVeedramon asked, dodging a series of searing blue fireballs. "I'd hate to have to kill this guy."

"It almost seems like we don't have much of a choice," BlitzShoutmon commented as he dodged the attacks easily. "There's no way he's going to listen to reason."

_"Shoutmon, we need to leave in just a couple minutes," _the yellow digimon heard coming from inside his head.

"I guess my partner wants us to hurry up," the digimon commented before realizing what that meant: his partner was okay. Somehow he had recovered far quicker than he expected. "Let's end this! Worst comes to worst, somebody can try to resurrect him or something, but in my opinion Tadashi shouldn't be a Tamer in the first place."

AeroVeedramon nodded.

"Lightning Tornado!" BlitzShoutmon called out, spinning around his enemy at extremely high speeds before running headlong into him.

Flarerizamon immediately gave the enemy digimon an uppercut while AeroVeedramon prepared his ultimate attack.

"Dragon Impulse!" he yelled out, causing a blue ghost of a dragon to head straight into Flaremon's torso, damaging his armor all over the place.

"Asura Bakunenken!" Asuramon yelled out, unleashing all his flames against Flaremon's cracked torso, causing the enemy digimon's form to destabilize and disintegrate.

With that, BlitzShoutmon immediately headed down to where his partner was waiting along with the Watchmaker, not realizing that time had temporarily froze. The digimon was shocked by how much muscle his partner had lost in the healing process.

"What's going on?" the yellow Champion asked.

"We're going. Unification is coming," his partner said simply before heading into the small clock-shop that was there.

"Unification… You mean, the worlds are about to collide?" BlitzShoutmon asked, startled by the thought.

"Yes, exactly," the old man responded as the yellow digimon followed him into the shop. "Come on in already. We have only a couple minutes before the Unification Wave reaches us."

Mr. Immortal thought about something else. "Is there any way you can freeze time for a couple seconds longer?"

The Watchmaker nodded. "What are you going to do?"

"Well, I figured I'd make things easier on Antonio. I just need to see his digivice for just a second," the blond man explained, still down from what he had to do. He didn't like it, but he felt he could make it easier for his friends.

The old man smiled before directing his partner to freeze time.

###

The Tamer's universe's David Symanski looked at his alternate counterpart, the Emperor, in shock. "What is this?"

"This is a duplicate of you, David. Don't touch him, or else the universe will explode," Kurata joked, grinning widely.

"Yeah, right! So, you kill all my friends, kidnap me and then show me this?" David yelled. "You're a complete and utter nutcase! Why should I believe you?"  
Kurata turned toward the brown-haired boy and grinned. "Oh, please, I'm trying to rid the universe of all Digimon. Or the multiverse, rather. I'm actually saner than any of you."

The Emperor was the one who spoke next. "No, you're insane. I have no idea who you are, Kurata, other than what you've told me, but I won't let you get away with this."

"That's easy for you to say when you're all tied up, boy," the mad scientist said, grinning wildly. "Oh, boy, this is just scrumptious. I should torture all Tamers like this when I get the chance!"

David lunged forward and struck Kurata. He didn't have his partner with him, but he was going to try to get his alternate self out of Gizumon's grasp so he headed straight for it, striking it before trying to pull its tentacles off of the Emperor's arm.

It was just as Kurata had planned. The brown-haired boy didn't believe him. Still, he would have to think of something else for next time.

Just as he gave up getting the metallic tentacle off of his alternate self, David tried grabbing the bare arm, not paying any heed to what Kurata had told him. He didn't want to believe the man who killed his friends. He couldn't.

And yet, when he grabbed the Emperor's arm, the two of them exploded in light, causing a wave to head out from where they were. Kurata laughed wildly before turning toward the remaining David Symanski, the one from the Tamer's universe.

###

What none of them knew was that there was a failsafe on the digivice that caused every Tamer and former Tamer to go straight to the Digital World during Unification. This was because during the event all Digimon are automatically sent to the Digital World and all Humans to the Real World. However, all Digivices were designed with that failsafe from the basic digivice of Adventure 99 to the top-of-the-line D-Plus that Mr. Immortal carried around with him. The same applied to former Tamers and Digidestined that didn't have partners such as Jeri Katou or Takuya's Team when that world eventually got merged with the Tamers' world.

###

None of Tadashi's team knew what would happen when they were stuck by the Unification Wave. But the effects seemed to involve getting new memories, seemly out of nowhere.

Neither he nor Abby felt any effects, though. The others, on the other hand, felt effects immediately.

Tadashi had memories of being in the real world days after he was supposed to meet the Watchmaker, growing bitter and spiteful. He turned toward Ed with a bit of anger but suppressed it. _We're friends now, _he reminded himself. Then he remembered what he tried to do right before this thing did. His half that hadn't lived those weeks in the real world chastised the half that did for that.

Ayaka remembered reaching Ultimate earlier than Tadashi as well as seeing Yuji reach that level on his own. She also remembered a number of times she spent with her family.

Miki didn't reach Ultimate in the other timeline. Still, she had memories of her family like Ayaka.

Gunter gained memories of his counterpart from Abby's world. He remembered the trip to Paris when he met Ed going a lot differently and he thought about how he didn't have a partner in that world and how he spent most of his time studying. He also felt a slight physical change since he didn't lose as much weight in Abby's world as in his own world since it was mandatory for working for the German government that he have a personal trainer in the Tamers' world.

Abby and Ed didn't exist in their opposite worlds so they were confused. "Uh, what was that?" the brunette asked the group.

"It seems to me like…" Ayaka trailed off.

"Our worlds combined together," Gunter concluded. That was his only conclusion. He had no idea how it had happened.

Tadashi nodded to that, feeling a twinge of guilt. _A dark woman screamed. A blond man lay on the ground, motionless and missing a limb. A heavyset man looked on with anger in his eyes. A black kid held out a digivice with determination. _"Yeah…" was all he could say. He hated what his other self had done and he wasn't about to reveal it.

None of them noticed the small, black object on the ground that disintegrated nor that Samuel Krenzel was no longer with them.

###

Samuel Joseph Krenzel stood in shock, getting up and feeling utterly sick. He was in the middle of a meeting with the rest of Roger Volkmann's top generals, so this seemed like a non-sequitur to the others. The heavy kid was followed by his boss himself to the bathroom where he lost the contents of his lunch.

"What was that?" the American member of the triumvirate asked his underling. Joey got up and turned toward his boss.

"I… I had these weird memories, man," the heavy boy responded, his voice crackly.

"Weird memories? Yeah, right. So, are you going to let these things get to you or are you going to do your job?" Roger asked, angry.

"No, you're right, I need to get my job done," the heavy kid headed straight for the meeting room, followed by an irate Roger. To the triumvirate member, what the Joey did was utterly incomprehensible.

There was a murmuring at the table. Apparently some of the others had these strange memories as well. Roger just rolled his eyes and called for the meeting to continue.

It was time for their next stage of expansion. What he didn't notice was that the map of the planetary Digital World was far different than the one he had used before, almost as if it had merged with something else.

###

A/N: The crest of rage is not a canonical crest like Desire or Pride. In fact, I saw it in another fanfic. Heh.

So, if anybody's confused about where Matt came from, he's Ed's friend from Chapter 10. Also, Gustavo's another friend of Ed's. Also, whatever Mr. Immortal did to Antonio's digivice will be revealed in Chapter 31.

And as far as the whole Dimension Key storyline, this is what I had as an idea for a long time. Actually, my story Digimon Scammers: Ragnarok was going to have something happen like this too, same with World Tournament. As far as why it does that and why David Symanski meeting an alternate version of himself does that… Well, you'll find out later. I have a good reason for that, too. I guess I better change the genre of this story from Mystery to Sci-Fi.


	30. Ciudad de los Muertos

Chapter 30: Ciudad de los Muertos

###

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

###

A dark-skinned man walked along the edge of a vast cliff, overseeing a large city. With him was a boy of about twelve, with olive skin and curly hair, wearing a green, buttoned-up shirt over a white shirt and a pair of blue-jeans. The man decided to tell the boy a story as they walked along the edge. "Once, there was a man that fell in love with a woman from a different country. The two conversed by letter over a period of about a year and they wanted to get married, but they couldn't decide on which of their two countries to move to afterwards. Then the woman received a job offer here, and her fiancé agreed that it was a good compromise. So, after they were married at a ceremony in the man's home country, they moved here, buying a nice little house." The man smiled.

"Uh, why are you telling me this?" the boy asked, his voice starting to crack with the onset of puberty.

"What? Are you saying that you never heard the story of how your parents first met?" the man inquired.

The boy's eyes widened. "Wait, you mean that my parents lived here?" he asked, looking over the city.

"Yes, specifically the area of Federal Heights," the man responded, smiling before adjusting his glasses before pointing. "It is right over there, along I-25 and I-76."

The boy nodded. "What about you? Were you from here?"

The man shook his bald head. "No, I'm from Cleveland. You, however, are."

The boy's eyes widened. "What? You mean… How come my grandparents never told me about this?"

"It was because of how traumatic your last days were here," the man explained, frowning before pulling out a digivice. "I know you don't want this, but…"

The boy was angry. "Are you kidding me? Of course not! It's because of that stupid thing that my grandparents are dead!"

"No, it's because of the Anti-Digimon League that they are dead, not because of your partner," the man objected. "Art, I'm giving this back to you so that we can save them, your parents and everyone you love."

"Mr. Rinaldi, you can't be serious!" The boy exclaimed.

"Yes, I am," Alexander Rinaldi responded. "What do you know about Time Travel or Alternate Realities?"

"Both are impossible," Art guessed.

Mr. Rinaldi smiled. "On the contrary, both are indeed possible. Once there were numerous realities, but now, due to the various Unifications, there are only two left: this reality and the source realitie. And as for time travel, I have a way to travel through time."

###

Shibumi and Yamaki were in the conference room shortly after the Unification occurred, conversing with spokespersons from Echelon, Saxum and various other intelligence groups.

"So far, we have no explanation for why more than 7,000 Tamers were taken to the digital world, nor do we have an explanation for the events that led to that," Yamaki told the group of representatives on the screens.

_"What about making our way into the Digital World?" _Rob McCoy asked from one of the screens.

_"Unfortunately, it seems we aren't detecting any gateways to or from the Digital World," _a black woman from Saxum responded. Her thick, curly hair was held back by a purple headband and she was wearing a dark grey suit.

_"Nor are there any digimon bioemerging," _the representative from China added.

"We realize that, and we're trying to figure out a way to set up the ark again, but there's still the problem of the barriers being impenetrable," Shibumi responded. "Along with the obvious being the sheer numbers of Tamers, many of whom are children."

Rob McCoy nodded before speaking. _"My granddaughter is there again, though this time she's in the flesh. At least she has a partner to protect her now."_

Yamaki decided to add something to his speech. "There is someone who may know something. He goes by a number of names: Carmine Reed and Keith Jackson for instance, but the codename that Echelon uses for him is Mr. Immortal."

McCoy gasped. The rest of the group didn't know who Mr. Immortal possibly was. _"Him… But he's supposed to be on sabbatical. How do you know about him anyway?"_

"He came here to work under a false identity," Yamaki replied sternly. "Of course, he makes up a new identity every twenty years or so, if the information I have on him is correct."

_"That's true. It's due to how he can't die," _Rob McCoy explained. _"Because of that, he made an agreement with one of the founding fathers to have that legal ability so that he wouldn't have any mobs going after him because of his immortality."_

"Yes, but I take it he didn't know that this agreement doesn't extend to other countries," Yamaki responded. "He is wanted for coming to work here under false pretenses."

"And he was about to turn himself in before being attacked by one of our Tamers," Shibumi told Yamaki.

The blond man was shocked by that one. "That… is a surprise."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier. You called this meeting almost immediately after the Unification occurred," Mizuno informed his partner.

Mitsuo Yamaki hadn't expected that. Still, this man needed to be found. "There is also someone else that we need to find, someone known as the Watchmaker, who apparently knows how to travel through time. The first place to look for them is…" The blond brought up a map of the Caribbean and pointed to a small island to the east of Puerto Rico. "… Here, the small island of Santa Corona."

The group of representatives all nodded. _"That's technically in international waters,"_ Rob McCoy told the group. _"Maybe this should be a joint operation between Saxum and Echelon."_

"I agree," the dark-skinned Saxum representative stated. "In the meantime, we'll need to monitor the Digital World. Some Saxum workers have detected unusual digivice signals."

"That's surprising," Shibumi said, his face showing slight shock.

_"It is. There are a number of signals belonging to one type of digivice as well as one belonging to a different type,"_ the black woman explained. _"Two of the signals belong to people with the last name Symanski. The other type of digivice belongs to someone whose name is obscured. However, he seems to be traveling with someone named Fernando Guevara."_

_"Antonio's nephew. He's partnered with a Patamon,"_ McCoy deduced.

The black woman smiled mischievously. _"Yes, and nearby are a number of other Tamers including some Japanese citizens."_

###

Jeri found herself in the middle of arctic tundra. She had no idea how she got here, just that she was in class one minute, wondering where Tadashi had gone, and here the next. It all felt so cold, and she needed to get out of here. So, she shouted out. "Hello, anybody out there?"

After a minute without a response, she grabbed her digivice and glanced at its radar mode, detecting five other signals nearby. So, she walked toward them. She fingered the signals, getting details on them. The first was Ai and Makoto, meaning that the two six-year-olds were trapped in the Digital World alongside her. So, she ran until she found them following a black boy and a blond boy. The black boy had a Kotemon following close behind him while the blond boy was carrying a pink fluff, Piximon.

It turned out that neither the black guy nor the blond guy could speak Japanese and all Ai and Mako were doing was annoying them.

"Hi, my name is Jeri," she greeted them in her best possible English.

"Yo, the name's Matthias. So, what's a pretty Asian girl doing out here without her partner, eh?" the black boy asked with as sly a smile as he could muster.

Jeri didn't want to talk about Leomon yet. "Hi, what is your name?" she asked the blond guy.

"Uh," the blond guy started to say before speaking halted, heavily accented English. "My name is Gustavo."

"Huh?" Jeri asked, confused.

"Yeah, I know. Blondie here doesn't speak much other than Spanish even though he don't look Mexican. Talk about false advertising, man!" Matt complained.

"Yeah? I can understand this guy just fine when he speaks Spanish," Impmon informed him.

"What? You can?" the black boy inquired. "That's crazy talk, dude."

"You wanna bet?" the imp asked, creating a small ball of fire with his finger.

"Impmon, no!" Ai exclaimed in Japanese.

"Yeah, you better be good, Impmon!" Makoto told, aiming the finger toward the ground.

"Aw, you're no fun!" Impmon complained. Jeri simply giggled a little bit.

"Man, talk about only hearing half the conversation," Matthias remarked before turning to Piximon. "So, you think you can make one of those orb thingies and take us somewhere else? I'm freezing my butt off here!"

"If you want, I can take you anywhere you'd like," the pink ball of fluff responded.

Jeri decided to take matters into her own hands. "We should try to find out if there are any other Tamers around here first. They might need our help."

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Matt said, grinning at the Asian girl. "So, where you from? Japan?"

Jeri nodded. "Yeah, I'm from Shinjuku."

"Shinjuku! I was there just before coming to the digital world. Didn't go hanging around much, though," the black guy complained. "Man, that was a bummer. Saw a guy get his arm blown off, too."

The brunette girl looked at him in shock. "Wh… what?"

"Yeah, this fat blond Asian kid did it to him, too."  
"Tadashi? No…" Jeri was appalled. _It couldn't have been him. There's no way Tadashi would have done that._

"Other Tamers are near," Gus told the group. "Fernando Guevara and another."  
"Fernando Guevara and someone else, huh?" Matt asked.

"And… And… Alice McCoy."

"Alice?" Jeri inquired. "I heard about her. Her partner sacrificed his life so that Takato and the others could reach the Mega level."

"Come on, man! Let's get going!" Matt exclaimed.

Piximon then created an orb and transported them to the location of Fernando Guevara.

###

After the wave hit, Tadashi's team needed to find shelter as night fell over the Digital World, something they didn't notice happen earlier. The group really needed to go after Abby's brother, but they realized that they might as well be too late since they are a few hundred kilometers from the location of his digivice and none of their digimon could travel fast enough. "Scanning with my digivice shows me that there's a whole bunch of buildings just over that hill," Gunter reported.

Tadashi decided to follow along with it, deciding he wasn't exactly fit as leader. There were so many conflicting emotions running through the blond's head that he had a hard time keeping track of them all. He had to struggle just to keep himself from lunging at Ed. Still, he tried his best to keep himself in check, breathing in and out while dealing with the guilt that his good half felt as well as the rage that his dark side felt.

And then there was the despair that both halves of his mind felt, despair that he couldn't find Takato and the others before the rest of their childhoods passed them by.

Ayaka was the one to notice the emotional changes in her blond friend. She wandered over to him as they traveled. "Are you alright, Tadashi?" she inquired.

"I'm fine, Ayaka!" he snapped before covering his mouth as he watched her flinch. "Sorry. I guess I'm kind of stressed."

The girl smiled at him. "I know, right? We have all these memories that seem like they came out of nowhere and now we have to deal with them." She paused for a few seconds as they made their way over the hill of sand. "Your other half… wasn't very happy in the days before whatever happened to us, was he?"

Tadashi shook his head. "He was angry. I guess he was kind of ticked at all the adult Tamers in the world and so he took it out on them."

Ayaka looked at her friend in concern. "Wait, what do you mean?"

"Remember how I left class really fast?" the blond asked. "That was because I… found out a certain person was in the area. I… I did something really bad."

The blonde girl stared at him. "What… What did you do?"

"The part of me that… lived in the real world all that time, he… he tried to kill somebody. Instead, he almost killed somebody else that was with that other guy, in front of several other people including Shibumi." It was really painful for Tadashi to get it all out. The blond glanced over at Coronamon, whose other self was deleted by a combination assault from Asuramon, AeroVeedramon and Vermillimon on the roof of the Hypnos building. The poor digimon had no idea what Tadashi forced him to do.

Ayaka wasn't going to ask him who his other self tried to kill. Still, she felt she needed to do something. "Tadashi, is there anything you want me to do for you?"

The blond nodded. "Yeah, lead the team until I get this… dark side or whatever out of the way. Don't tell anybody else about what happened, especially…" He couldn't say the last part, the name of the friend his other self betrayed because he was so consumed by rage.

"Here we are!" Gunter shouted. Tadashi and Ayaka realized they were a ways behind the rest of the team. That was probably why they couldn't hear them.

"Wow, what a view!" Coronamon exclaimed. Even in the twilight hours, the city in front of them was magnificent. Right in front of them were numerous suburbs and beyond that were various unlit skyscrapers, jutting upward into the heavens.

"Wait, weren't we here before?" Ed asked the rest of the group.

"Yeah, you're right. This is that empty city you said was in your videogame!" Miki realized.

"I didn't say it was in my game. I just said that it reminded me of a city in my game," the pudgy black-haired boy corrected her.

"So, what's your stupid game about, anyway?" the dark-haired girl inquired as the team went downhill.

Ed explained everything away. "Well, it's about a guy who goes to this colony in outer space to get away from it all. What he doesn't know is that one of his roommates in the colony is actually an alien. Oh, and there are space Nazis and cyborgs."

Miki rolled her eyes. "Space Nazis and cyborgs, huh? Are there any princesses?"

Ed paused for a second. "Uh, no, there aren't. At least I don't think so." He reached into the laptop bag and pulled out his drawing notebook and went through it, flipping through the pages. "Nope, nothing." Then some pages fell out and the black-haired boy had to stop to grab them. "Oh, crap!"

Abby immediately went and helped him out, which made him slightly awkward. He was starting to get over the kiss that she gave him, but he still wasn't completely ready to confront the girl about it. Plus, there was the fact that he didn't want anybody to see his precious drawings at the moment, especially the ones that fell onto the ground.

The brunette girl picked them up and glanced at them. "A squirrel digimon, huh?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah!" he exclaimed, a little embarrassed and red in the face. "Ardillamon. I designed him one time after we ran into the Digimon Queen. Hehehe."

The girl noticed his slight embarrassment. "Hey, you've let me look over your drawings before…"

"I guess." The black-haired American rubbed the back of his neck.

"Hey, guys, we just got a little more to go!" Gunter exclaimed. Then the group hit the concrete streets on the edge of the city. "Wow, this place is huge!"

Ayaka nodded. "Well, I guess we can find shelter," she suggested. "Anything here that we should know about, like why the city from our digital world is here all the sudden?"

Gunter took the digivice and scanned the area. He did a double take when he saw what the digivice was picking up. "Uh, guys, there are other Tamers here!"

Everyone looked at him like he was nuts.

"That's impossible. The only Tamers in Abby's world are Abby and her friends," Miki objected.

"What if… I don't know, the worlds combined or something?" the brunette girl that Miki mentioned suggested.

"That's so weird. Is that even possible?" Coronamon asked, scratching his mane.

"Yeah, how could that even happen?" Keramon inquired, shaking all over.

Ed thought about it for a second as the team continued to walk down the desolate street, walking past the deserting buildings. "What if the Dimension Key has something to do with it?" he inquired of the group. "As in, if you turn the Dimension Key somehow, you'll combine two worlds together."

The team glanced at the black-haired boy. "That's nuts, but… You might be right," Tadashi said, almost begrudgingly due to his dark side. "But what is the Dimension Key, exactly."

"Imperator Symanski clavis dimensionalis est," Gunter said, repeating the mysterious Latin text that Ed found that one time. "In other words, Abby's brother's the Dimension Key."

"Then how do you turn it?" Ed asked the group.

The brown-haired girl didn't like the implications. "What if… what if to turn it, my brother has to… die or something?" she inquired, shivering every second.

"I hope not! Hey, did anybody see Samuel anywhere?" Gunter exclaimed.

Ayaka looked around. "Wait, you mean he disappeared without us knowing? How did that… Oh no, he had to have merged with his other self or something like that when the whole merging of worlds happened."

"Merging with our other selves, huh?" Gunter asked, scratching his chin. "That explains the weird memories."

"So, what about Taizou and Yuji? Does that mean that that happened to them too?" Miki asked the others.

Tadashi decided to check his digivice for their location. "That's funny, I can't find them."

The others looked at the blond in dread. "You've got to be joking," Coronamon said.

"What could have happened to them?" Salamon inquired.

"They couldn't have died, could they?" Syakomon asked with a shiver.

"No, they're not dead," Ayaka reassured the others. She felt a bit nervous having to boost the spirits of the team like this. "We'll find them at the Emperor's castle. Maybe the Emperor just destroyed their digivices when he left as soon as he found out his power was getting to be less and less."

Tadashi hoped that was the case. Of course, if it were, wouldn't their digivices that weren't destroyed before the merging of worlds have replaced their old ones as soon as the worlds merged together.

The whole concept of the Multiverse collapsing in on itself gave the blond boy a headache. It just didn't make any sense. Why would Abby's brother of all people be the key to unifying the worlds? What made him that way? There just weren't enough answers.

"So, if there are Tamers in the Digital World, wouldn't that mean that they work for the Digimon Queen?" Ed asked the others. "I mean, she's the only one with Tamers around here, right?"

The others realized that Ed might have been right. They were going to have to be cautious. Ayaka decided to check her digivice to see how many Tamers were in the Digital World. When she checked, she got an abnormally high number. "That can't be right. She couldn't have taken _that _many Tamers," she said, getting the stares of the other.

"How many?" Salamon inquired of her partner from next to her left leg.

"7,361."

"That's about how many Tamers there are in _our _world!" Gunter exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air.

"Then that would mean that they aren't all working for the Queen," Ed deduced.

"What about Takato and his team?" Tadashi inquired; concerned for the ones they couldn't save on time.

"They're here in this world," Ayaka replied after the others, "but they're on a totally different continent."

"Well, that's just great!" Miki exclaimed sarcastically in annoyance, folding her arms.

"What about Marie Cauvin, the Digimon Queen?" Ed inquired.

"She's here and on the planet," the blonde girl responded, worried. "She's actually on a different continent too."

"Drats, just who we need to deal with, right?" Miki said with words dripping in sarcasm.

"What about the Tamers nearby?" Tadashi asked.

"They're headed this way," Ayaka responded after going through a few screens on her digivice's map program. They were close.

Suddenly, a voice was heard through the air. "Grand Cross!" The group of Tamers knew that it meant that a digimon was attacking them. They all dodged an explosion and had to shield their eyes from the debris that resulted. The group looked over to the source of the attack, an angel in the form of a boy with short blond hair that was floating in mid-air ready for another attack.

Gunter immediately checked his digivice. "Lucemon, Rookie Level, Vaccine Attribute," he read off of the device.

"Rookie? That wasn't the attack of a Rookie!" Miki objected, the look on her face one of absolute horror as she sat in the middle of the road.

"He's a stronger-than-average Rookie," Abby told the group. "On Digimon Frontier, it took ten Megas to defeat a single Lucemon."

"Well, we'll have to do something about that, then!" Tadashi exclaimed, fury running across his face, making him forget about his dark side for just a second.

"Yeah, there's no way this freak's getting away with this!" Coronamon shouted, ready to strike.

"Stop the battle!" the group heard a smooth voice from beyond the angel. They spotted a skinny, fair-skinned American boy with his brown hair so short it looked practically shaved off. The group didn't know who he could have possibly been. "They're Japanese. All of Roger Volkmann's allies are either American or Canadian, or in the rarest cases, British or Australian," the teen explained to his team. Next to him was a version of Elecmon with purple and yellow fur, Vi-Elecmon.

"So, who are you?" Ayaka asked the American.

The skinny boy responded with a smile. "The name's Kyle Dibenko and I run the Denver team of Tamers. Sorry for the attack, we thought you worked for Roger Volkmann."

"Who the heck's Roger Volkmann?" Tadashi inquired, glaring at the newcomer.

After a brief pause, Kyle replied with a serious expression. "He claimed to be the most powerful Tamer in the Americas, up there with Antonio Guevara and Mr. Immortal. He also worked for Mr. Immortal to take down an enemy here in the Digital World shortly after becoming a Tamer, which helped him to reach Mega. Ultimately, Antonio Guevara defeated the enemy in question, but Roger still takes credit for it. His ego is massive but somehow he got a bunch of Tamers from all over Echelon's jurisdiction to join him."

"That guy!" Gunter exclaimed upon realizing who Roger was. "Oh man, I met him once. He wouldn't take no for an answer when he asked me to go to the Digital World with him and his team to fight something there. And then the Digimon Queen got me. Hehehe." The large German was a bit embarrassed about that one.

"Yeah, he's kind of nuts," Kyle told him. "Well, welcome to the city. We've been here for about a half an hour ever since that weird wave came and hit us and we almost thought you were Roger's people. Sorry for the misunderstanding."

"How many of you are there?" Ayaka inquired, curious about the group.

"You want to come?" the brown-haired teen asked the group, particularly Ayaka who he was smiling at. "I can show you where we set up camp."

The blonde chuckled a bit. "That would be great!"

###

"This whole thing that we call the Unification caught us all by surprise. Still, we found each other quickly and banded together just in case." The group listened to Kyle's explanation as they walked in and saw the group of about ten or so Tamers that the teen had found and contacted in the city, all lying around the indoor basketball courts that they were in. The brown-haired boy was in between two other, taller boys: one with black hair and brown eyes and the other with red hair and blue eyes. Both boys were really heavy and both had equally pale skin, though the black-haired one had rosy cheeks to go with it. Also, they had facial features that indicated that they were brothers.

"I guess I'm lucky that my buddies, the McCloskey brothers, and I were hanging out and we somehow got stuck in the same place. The rest of my friends weren't so lucky. But we found a few others that could help us." The brown-haired boy explained. "Once we found ourselves here, we made our way into this building and set up camp. I guess it's some sort of school or something, but it doesn't look like it's been lived in for a while."

"No kidding," Ayaka replied.

"So, anyway, you are welcome to stay," Kyle told the group, giving them a warm smile.

"We have to go find my brother," Abby told him. "I'm worried he might be in danger and at the center of our worlds combining."

"Our worlds?" Kyle's red-headed friend asked, his voice cracking like crazy. "Wait, what?"

"Yeah, that's right. My digital world and your digital world fused together," Abby replied. "We don't know how, exactly, but it had something to do with my brother."

###

The team spent the night there, seeing as they were all groggy and that David Symanski's digivice wasn't going anywhere. As it was, they were hundreds of miles away from its location, so they weren't able to get there in any reasonable time. Plus, they still needed to track down Yuji and Taizou.

The whole group took turns watching out for any enemy Tamers that may show up. Eventually, Ed was woken up to perform his watch with Steven, Kyle Dibenko's red-headed friend.

When Ed was summoned, Abby's eyes opened slightly as she saw him walk out of the room they were sleeping in to head up to the roof. She slowly forced herself to sit up before glancing over to the others in the room. As far as she could tell, they weren't sleeping well, especially since they were all forced out of their world. The brunette thought about her parents and how they must have missed her. She also thought about how she would have ended up in this world even if she hadn't gone willingly with the Tamers.

She heard some faint mumbling and looked over at Tadashi, who looked like he was having a nightmare. She had no idea what was going through the boy's head earlier, or why he had seemingly given authority to Ayaka. _Maybe something happened in the other world._

She forced herself up, being careful not to wake her partner, who was sleeping soundly at her feet. The girl then walked out the door and headed over to the stairwell leading to the roof. She was going to apologize to Ed no matter what it took.

When she opened the door, she could hear Ed and Steven talking, or at least the red-head. Steven was surprisingly boisterous and emotional. "So, anyway, we had to go up against this Ultimate Level that had just emerged, a Parrotmon. Well, anyway, it attacked us so we beat the crap out of it so that it got deleted. Then flipping Joey Krenzel came out of nowhere and chewed us out for taking out a digimon on _his _territory! And I'm like: 'Sorry, dude, I was just in the area. Won't happen again!' Still, he filed a complaint against me at Echelon."

"Wow, what a jerk," Ed responded, shaking his head.

"Oh, yeah, you should have seen this time he tried to trick Kyle into a Dark Digivolution," Steven's Ryudamon responded. "It didn't end good for him when Kyle digivolved his partner into his normal Ultimate form instead."

Abby gave a slight smile before finally shutting the door. The two Tamers heard this, though, and looked over, getting up just in case. "Oh, it's you!" Ed exclaimed.

"Wait, that's the nerdy chick on your team, right?" Steven asked loudly, eliciting an elbow from Ed. "Hey!"

The brunette just chuckled before walking over to Ed. "Hey, can we talk in private?"

Ed nodded. "Yeah, sure, there's an empty classroom just below us."

Abby nodded and Ed walked down the stairs with her and Prokyomon, who was just content to follow from a distance and keep an eye on them through the window on the door as they talked inside the classroom.

Abby just sat on one of the desks before speaking. "Ed, I… I have to tell you I am really sorry about the kiss the other day."

Ed smiled slightly. "Apology accepted. It… It just complicated things."

The brunette's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

The black-haired boy shrugged. "I don't know. I guess… I had a bit of a crush on you before that whole incident but having it reciprocated. I guess I'm just really confused."

Abby nodded. "Me too. I don't really know what to do about it, especially since my parents don't want me dating until I'm old enough to get married."

Ed's face went from somber to shocked. "Are you serious? My dad's the same way. Same with Tadashi's parents."

"Wow, I didn't expect that," the brunette replied, giggling a bit.

"Yeah, funny how we all are. So, what do you want to do about this?"

Abby thought about it for a second. "Well, since our parents don't want us getting together, I guess we should agree to be just friends for now."

Ed nodded. "Yeah, and we probably shouldn't be alone together from now on, either, so we don't end up getting involved."

The brunette smiled. "Well, I'm glad that was taken care of."

"Me too," Ed said, looking around the room before glancing at the wall. "Oh… crap, what is that?" He got up and walked over to the wall. "You've got to be kidding me."

Before walking into the room, Ed had turned on the light, but he didn't look closely at the words on the board. Now he did.

_Duo fratres sunt._

_ Unus maritus reginae erit._

_ Alter finis reginae erit._

"Uh, I think we should get the others," Abby said nervously, her face filled with concern.

"Yeah, and tell them Alexander Rinaldi left another message," Ed told her, his fists clenching.

###

Art yelled out, hating what had happened. "Dang it, dang it, dang it, dang it, dang it!" he cursed, kicking a rock, one of only a few on the vast tundra. "Unification! Why'd it have to be just before a stinkin' Unification!"

The brown-haired kid in front of him just shrugged, the Patamon on his head chuckled, while the blonde girl with them, Alice, just rolled her eyes. Nearby, a Sparrowmon flew up above, watching out for any enemies.

"Do you know what caused this?" she asked.

"Yeah, some idiot turned the Dimension Key. Stupid Unification! It's what separated me from my parents in the first place."

"That had to have been freaky," the brown-haired kid replied.

His partner, a Patamon, just fluttered up above him. "Wow, he's not in a good mood."

"Yeah, no kidding. I had no idea he would be like this when I met him a few minutes ago," the kid replied. And Patamon thought about it.

###

_ The small digimon formerly known as Daemon relaxed on his partner's head in the real world as they walked along a street in his neighborhood. The brown-haired kid had just gotten some ice cream from an ice-cream truck and was heading back to his house with the yellow digimon, Patamon. Really, things were going well for the former ruler of Oppidus Septentrionale. He had a fairly relaxing life and since his ally had left him in an area with very few bioemergences, he didn't really have to do any fighting either._

_ "Hey, is that a digimon?" The yellow rodent's reverie was interrupted by that phrase and he looked over at the speaker, a thirteen-year-old with olive skin and curly black hair. The boy had a full face and a slightly pointed nose. Patamon had to guess that the boy in front of him was either of Mediterranean or Latin American descent, though he wouldn't be able to guess where except by asking._

_ "Uh, yeah, he's my partner, Patamon," Patamon's Tamer replied enthusiastically. He was only about ten years old, so his voice was soft like one would expect for someone of that age._

_ The dark-skinned boy smiled. "That's cool. You fight many powerful digimon here?"_

_ The Tamer shook his head. "Nope, we definitely don't. All the bioemergences are in bigger cities like San Francisco or Los Angeles."  
The dark-skinned boy grimaced. "Now that has to suck. I think it was that way for me and my partner for the first little bit." He chuckled._

_ "You got a partner?" the brown-haired kid asked._

_ Patamon was surprised too. "What kind of digimon is he?" he inquired._

_ "Ardillamon!" the dark-skinned boy called out. Suddenly, a small squirrel ran out of the bushes, climbed his partner's back and up onto his shoulder. The tan-colored rodent smiled at Patamon and his partner._

_ "Oh, and by the way, my name's Fernando," Patamon's partner greeted the other Tamer, who shook his hand in response._

_ "Mine's Arturo but everybody calls me Art," the olive-skinned boy replied with a grin._

###

"What is the Dimension Key?" Alice asked, fed up with the dark-skinned boy kicking everything around.

"Some dude named David Symanski. For some reason, unlike anybody else, when he meets his alternate self, instead of just fusing with him, it fuses the two realities he was from together too." The dark-skinned boy shrugged at Alice's confused look. "I know. It doesn't make much sense to me, either."

"I wonder if anybody I know is here," Fernando told his partner.

"Let's find out," Patamon told him in between glances at Art as his tamer pulled his digivice out and performed a search for his brother Ezekiel.

Alice did the same.

_I doubt anybody I know's here,_ Art mused, still moderately grumpy as he pulled out his D-Plus and opened it, using it as a small tablet. He wondered why whoever designed the digivice didn't just go all out and make it into a smart-phone. He pressed the button for the radar app and then pressed a button toward the top of the touch-screen that that said "Radar Search".

He hesitated a bit, trying to remember the maiden name of the woman that he was about to search for. "Katarina Xanthopoulos."

_"Location found: WWW continent, 5,467 kilometers away,_" the device said, showing a dot where the woman's digivice was. It looked like it was inside a building of some sort. There was also a digivice signal right next to hers. The boy touched the signal. _"Petros Xanthopoulos."_

"That doesn't make any sense," the boy mumbled, wondering if the digivice was malfunctioning. "She didn't have any family named Petros."

"Who didn't?" Fernando asked, looking at the digivice and seeing the initial look-up. "Ooh, you looked up a girl, huh? She your girlfriend?"

Art pushed the boy's head away. "No, that's disgusting! She's just a relative."

"Oh, you have a cousin in the Digital World or something?" Fernando inquired.

The olive-skinned boy knew better than to hesitate, knowing about Fernando's deduction abilities. "Yeah, I remember meeting her years ago."

"Oh, okay, cool. So, you're Greek, huh?" Fernando inquired and Art nodded, wondering how he could have deduced that so quickly. The curly-haired boy had no idea how he was going to survive being with the kid.

"Guys, somebody's coming," Alice told the group, pointing. The two boys looked and saw a sphere of light heading straight for them. The sphere stopped after a few seconds and a variety of kids appeared with their partners.

A brunette girl took the lead, her oriental features a striking contrast. "Hi, I'm Jeri. You must be Alice."

Art raised an eyebrow as Jeri and Alice conversed. A Sparrowmon flew down to check things out. "Yes, that's me," Alice responded with a smile. "And these are Art and Fernando."

Art raised his hand weakly in a wave while Fernando smiled widely. "Cool, it's somebody from Japan!"

The brown-skinned boy glared at Fernando. He couldn't stand kids.

After a sharing of stories about how they got there, during which Art revealed what he knew to the girls about the Dimension Key, the girls decided to bring up the subject of where to go. "Maybe we should try to find other Tamers and find a way out of here," Jeri suggested.

"Hey, there could be a reason for us to be here." Art looked over to the source of the voice to see a black kid with a wide grin. "Maybe we have to kick evil digimon butt!" The Greek kid glared. He was already starting to not like him.

"But there are way too many Tamers here for us to be the Digidestined or something," Alice objected. "I agree with Jeri, but there has to be a final destination."

"Oh, okay, I get it," the black kid said. He looked like he was quietly cursing himself for something.

"Maybe we can visit Art's cousin," Fernando suggested.

"She's five thousand kilometers away, kid," the dark-skinned boy objected.

"Five-thousand kilometers should be well in my range," Piximon told him.

"Oh, so pink creampuff has something to do, huh?" Art rolled his eyes.

"You're not being very nice," Alice told him, giving him a glare.

The olive-skinned boy raised an eyebrow. "Uh, in case you haven't noticed, lady, we're kind of stuck in the digital world. I have a reason to be grouchy."

"Uh, dude, that doesn't mean you should take it out on everybody else," the black kid told him. Art just shrugged.

###

"There are two brothers. One becomes a queens husband, the other her end. Cryptic," Gunter commented, translating the text from before. "Al must be telling us something. I wonder who these two brothers are."

"Me and Kurita," Tadashi deduced, telling the group. He was really uncomfortable. "The Watchmaker gave me this vision one time where I worked for her and she called me her favorite."

"But Kurita's in the Dark Ocean, right?" Ayaka inquired. She remembered the surprise Tadashi felt when he found that out from Kuzuhamon.

Tadashi shrugged. "Maybe Kuzuhamon lied again."

Ayaka thought about that. "Whatever's going on, we need to find Abby's brother. Miki, can you check and see if Taizou and Yuji showed up again?" The blonde felt really awkward giving orders instead of Tadashi, especially since the blond was there with them.

The dark-haired girl performed a search. "Oh, yeah, found them," she exclaimed. "Bushy brows and Fabio are at the Emperor's castle along with some other people, including Abby's team."

Abby looked up at that one. "That's… That's great. You think they're no longer under the Emperor's control."

"Maybe. There's a couple other signals too. Looks like some brother and sister duo came by along with another team or something." The siblings looked like they had some weird last name that the dark-haired girl wasn't going to attempt to pronounce.

"Okay, Miki, contact Taizou," Ayaka told her.

###

A/N: There, I revealed Art, showed what happened to Daemon (kind of. You'll get a more detailed explanation later), and showed what Rinaldi looks like. Though, the next chapter will complicate that one a bit. Heh.

Right now, the story's going to be about two teams, Jeri's team and Ayaka's team. Oh, and the others fit in there too. I guess it's going to be Three Lines, Some Waiting for a bit, though I'd prefer to keep it at Two Lines, No Waiting. The next chapter, which is already written, should be out in a couple of days. It'll reveal how Taizou, Yuji and the others got rescued as well as what's happening with Antonio and Katarina.

Don't worry, the majority of the characters introduced in this chapter as well as the next one won't be doing much, so you don't have to remember them. I guess. Maybe. Well, they'll just be minor characters who don't take the focus out of the hands of the others. Oh, and Kyle and his team had a brief cameo in Chapter 15, if anybody's wondering.


End file.
